Everyone Must Suffer
by thomasrigby
Summary: Six American teenagers on a field trip to Japan pay a visit to the Saeki house...and one-by-one fall prey to the curse.
1. Kristen: Rage

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge", or any of the characters contained within said films. Feedback is appreciated, and criticisms are welcome as long as they're polite and constructive, as I would do the same. One more note - this takes place in the Japanese or "Ju-On" universe, which is slightly different from the American films.

_"Ju-On: The curse of one who dies while in the grip of a powerful rage. It gathers and takes effect in the places where that person was alive. Those who encounter it die, and a new curse is born."_

Kristen

**Rage**

"This is it," Tim said, pointing ahead to the house that, to Kristen's eyes, looked completely and utterly nondescript.

So this is the big momentous event? Kristen played out the events of the last several hours in her own mind. Just before they had enjoyed yet another lunch consisting of noodles and rice at one of the local eateries, Mr. Sauer had agreed to part ways with them for the rest of the day. He had also made them promise to call with a status update each and every hour, as the alone time had NOT been approved by the rulemeisters at Chester Donovan Public High School.

Tim had promised them that all would be well; that he would be the one to make all of the phone calls to Mr. Sauer, that nobody back home in New York City would ever be the wiser about where they had really been, and that this would NOT be the ever-present stain on any of his friends' precious high school records. Because, for some reason, Tim Orlock, who at this moment wore one of his patented shirts adorning the virtues of Michael Myers, positively had to see this house.

Kristen looked around at her friends; surprisingly, none of them felt as exasperated as she did, and she even detected the faintest amounts of genuine interest in many of their faces. Carly, in particular, had been extremely stoked to see this house; as per usual, she wanted an impressive story to tell her multitudes of friends back home. Of course, not wanting to fall behind in the "daily Carly sex allotment" department, Evan played along with Carly's whims.

While the two high-ranking members of the Chester Donovan social elite were among her friends, Kristen felt the smallest twinge of jealousy looking at the pair, hanging off of each other's clothes and fumbling around in front of the house's main gate. No doubt, both would be successful in life based on nothing more than name value; Carly Smith's father was one of the city's high-ranking public officials, the assistant director of public transportation. In New York City, it was well-known that this was a fairly big deal; after all, if the maze of subway tunnels that lined the caves beneath the city streets were to stop working, it would mean certain disaster for the city's work force as a whole. Mr. Smith knew people, which, in turn, meant that Carly knew people. She would be taken care of as long as she lived.

Directly behind her – not really behind her, more like directly on top of her – stood her boyfriend Evan Daniels. His muscular physique stood out against his two-sizes-too-small polo shirt and blue jeans, meshing extraordinarily well with his girlfriend's equally trendy short, revealing outfit. Much like Carly, Evan had also been born with a set of traits that lent themselves well to being able to fit in with society. For as long as Kristen had known Evan, he had been the shining star on whatever athletic endeavor he had taken on, and was presently in the midst of a long courtship between Auburn University and Maryland for the use of his football skills.

Standing next to Kristen, staring straight ahead at one of the rotted wooden windows on the supposedly "cursed" house, stood Jen Young, her best friend. On paper, she and Jen could not be any different; Jen enjoyed the raucous parties that took place nearly every weekend, depending on just whose parents had to be away on some urgent business, while Kristen preferred to stay home, doing little else besides watching movies and passing the time reading sociological and psychological literature. While she had been childhood friends with Jen, and one might have expected the two to drift apart as the years went on, they had managed to remain close over the years, to the point that they had spent the majority of the time on the very walk to this site either poking fun at the lovebirds Evan and Carly or dorky Tim.

At the very rear of the group stood Derrick Martin, a tall, imposing 18-year-old who had barely spoken a word all afternoon. While not a regular member of their circle of friends, Derrick got along fairly well with Evan. He better, Kristen thought; if not for Derrick, Evan wouldn't have those gaping holes to run through in all the football games that Friday nights at Chester Donovan hinged on. Thus, not having any other groups to cling to, Derrick had spent the majority of the time on this field trip hanging with their group.

And leading the way, standing on top of the bottom rung on the gate that separated the house from the rest of the tiny, residential Japanese streets that they had spent the better part of three hours wandering, stood Tim. A person like Tim seemed tailor-made for the usual batch of beatings and other social torment that seemed to befall the other kids like him; he had realized early on in life that he wasn't built for athletic endeavor, and had spent the majority of his middle school years cultivating his vices. X-Men comics, Star Trek fandom, and most recently, horror movie fanaticism. But while Tim could be annoying, there was also a fascinating funny streak to him that could be both endearing and self-evascing; it seemed that whenever a member of their friendship group was having a bad day, Tim would come along, make fun of himself, and all would be well. To outsiders, while Tim stood out like a sore thumb, he was, in a way, the center of the group.

Which brought Kristen back to herself. Kristen Ng, 17 years old, graduating high school in a scant two months. Vietnamese father, American mother, hardworking student hoping to major at psychology at NYU in the fall. While she had not been very confident about her essay, apparently, the suits who were in charge of things didn't feel the same way; her National Honor Society status had earned her the trip to Japan that the high school awarded its best and brightest. Of course, Evan had been able to go due to his athletic achievements, while Carly had (of course) been invited based on the fact that if she hadn't, it would have meant catching hell from her powerful father. Tim had won a few writing awards from the local New York colleges, and one of his essays on the entertainment industry had appeared in the New York Post.

But me? I'm just a boring old National Honor Society student, and that's just the way I like it. And here we are – just another random group of typical high school students on a field trip, looking at a no doubt falsely-theorized "haunted" house.

Admittedly, it had been a pretty fascinating trip. The high school chose a different international site every year, and Kristen had been very excited when the HAIC's at Chester had bestowed Japan the honorary country of choice for this year's honor trip.

Japan had so much history, so much culture, and so much in the way of both fascinating people and places that she and her small group of friends would most assuredly not be bored. Thus far, her personal favorite part of the trip had been the Kabuki play. Very different from the plays of the United States, Kabuki theater required a lot of theorizing and thought on the part of each individual audience member to interpret the actions of the living puppets on the stage, and Kristen had loved every minute of it.

Throughout the course of the trip, they had also been sprung at one of the fancier hotels directly in the middle of Tokyo, and the nighttime cityscape of Tokyo was truly a sight to behold. Very different from New York City, every corner of the city seemed to come alive and blink at night. And while the crowds were unimaginable at times, amazingly, a person never found themselves rushed, at least as long as one did not mind the constant cries of "_gai-jin_" followed by a greeting from passer-bys on the street.

Going on the high school trip had long been a goal of Kristen's; it meant not only that she would be close to accomplishing one of her goals, it also meant that she was one step closer to the one thing that was more important to her than anything, as well as the thing that haunted her mind at this very moment. Getting away from home, which is what awaited her after this dream trip was over.

Kristen's mind snapped back to reality, and the five people standing around her. When Mr. Sauer, the older, stodgy-but-fair English teacher who had been entrusted with the international trip at Chester Donovan for the past several years, had given his students the green light to explore the city on their own, he had most assuredly not known that Tim Orlock had planned this moment out for a long time.

Tim had first told them about all of the different types of Japanese ghosts; when they had first hopped on the bus bound from the center of Tokyo to the outskirts of the city, and the smaller residential housing districts, he had spent the better part of forty-five minutes rattling off facts culled from the countless websites that he frequented, showing off his encyclopedic knowledge of death, the beyond, and the occult. Kristen had known that Japanese people were very spiritual people; they not only feared the dead, but they respected them.

He had known that they would be going to Japan, and thus, he dug deep on his websites; he said that he had found a house that he had to see, and if he didn't, he would consider the trip a failure. Everyone was free to come, or free to remain in the heart of Tokyo, surrounded by the marauding hordes of natives. But after a week of the crowds, not surprisingly, Kristen along with the rest of her friends were more than happy to find some shoulder time in the residential slum that they now found themselves in.

The bus ride had taken them outside of the city and dropped them off in the beautiful Japanese countryside, where Tim had dug out the map he had printed from of all places, and Evan had enjoyed more than a few chiding jokes at Tim's expense. Tim Orlock was nothing if not persistent, and after spending an hour walking through the countryside, they had found the residential villa. One more hour later, they had navigated the maze of twisting streets that actually bared a slight resemblance to the suburban houses outside of New York City that many of Kristen's classmates called home – and then they had found _it._ The house.

Tim continued to stare at the house, proud that he had not only validated his precious find on yahoo, but also that he had showed off his staunch bravery to Jen. It was not a secret, to Kristen or to Jen – Tim harbored more than friendly feelings for her, and this little sidebar into haunted house urban legend was no doubt part of some greater plan to impress her on some level.

From the outside, the house did not look especially menacing. The front door was visible from the street where they now stood, and a gate surrounded the entire building. It was two levels, there were bars on several of the windows. Apparently, it had been unoccupied for some time. The entire house, while normal and unassuming, no doubt had the slightly Japanese look and influence that differentiated it from the houses she was used to seeing. The sides of the house were tightly bunched together with the gate, and a walkway led from the front gate to the door.

"So this is the big cursed house, huh?" Jen said, finally speaking up and breaking Tim from his proud reverie.

"Yeah," Tim said, looking back at Jen, pushing up his glasses with one arm and balancing his weight on the gate with the other. He jumped down. "So, who wants to go in?"

"You wanna go in there?" Evan suddenly said, tightening his grip around Carly.

"I won't be able to leave until I do," he said.

"Why would you wanna do that?" Evan said.

"Because," Tim replied, walking slowly toward Evan. "I've spent the last two years of my life watching horror movie after horror movie. Never seen where a real one happened. Not this close, anyway."

"So what exactly do you plan to accomplish in there?" Kristen said.

"Just to be in there. This is supposed to be one of the most haunted places in all of Tokyo."

"Where did you read that?" Kristen asked.

"The shadowlands website," he said matter-of-factly. "Couple ghost hunters on their message boards say that they got really high EMF readings on here. Like, we're talking seven, eight range."

"Tim," Kristen said, laughing to herself. "I'm sorry, but that doesn't mean much to us."

"Well, rest assured, it's high," Tim said. "I just need at least one of you guys to come in there with me."

"What for?" Evan said.

"I'm not going in there alone."

"If you really want to go in there that badly, you would," Evan said.

"There is no way I'm going in there alone. Not after what happened in there."

"What?" Evan said, releasing his grip on Carly and walking toward the front gate of the house, looking at the front door. "What happened in there?"

"Tell you what, Evan, if you go in there with me, I'll tell you."

There was a pause then, and Kristen studied Evan's face. She had gotten used to reading the emotions and intentions of people's faces; it had been a skill culled from reading the psychology books that she spent the vast majority of her weekend time with while the other high school students – and some of her own friends – were partaking in not-so-wholesome activities.

Evan's curiosity was no doubt piqued. And Kristen did not like it one bit.

"Alright, man," Evan finally said. "I'm going in. Carly, you are, too."

"Whatever," she said, obediently walking to the front gate to stand with Tim and Evan.

Tim turned back, scanning his three remaining friends. Not surprisingly, he turned to Jen first. "Jen? Come on, we only graduate once. This will make one hell of a story for everybody back home, huh?"

Much to her surprise, Jen's face seemed very intrigued by the offer. Jen did like Tim a great deal as a friend. Tim had even managed to work up the guts to ask her out on several different occasions, and she had turned him down every time. However, she enjoyed his company enough that she did not care to do so in a way that would ruin her relationship with Tim entirely. Right now, Jen wore the "what a goofball" look that she had perfected when dealing with Tim.

"Okay, Tim," she said, walking forward and slapping Tim's outstretched hand. "I'll do it."

"Alright," Tim said, smiling a Cheshire cat smile. "What about you, Kristen? You don't want to stay out there in the boring street, do you?"

Kristen had hoped that more of her friends would say no to the offer, and right now, her only options were to remain with her close friends, or remain in the street with Derrick, who seemed nice enough, but he was someone she barely knew.

"Yeah, sure," she said, purely by default, and walking forward.

As she reached the gate, standing next to Jen once again, she looked back at Derrick. He still had not spoken a word since arriving at this site. His face, while showing no fear, showed apprehension.

"You're sure about this, Tim?" he said, in a gruff, no-nonsense tone.

Everything about him is gruff, Kristen thought, from his voice to his frame to his all-black long-sleeve shirt and athletic pants ensemble.

"Come on, man," Tim said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

"This could be illegal," Derrick responded, taking a step forward, but stopping there, still looking at the front door of the house. "Since we're foreigners, they might be hard on us if they catch us."

"There aren't any signs posted here, Derrick, we've got nothing to worry about."

"It's trespassing," he said. "I can't be doing that."

Tim walked away from his group of friends, and put an arm around Derrick. "Derrick, we're from an affluent New York City high school. And it's not like we're going in there to smoke weed or have sex or anything. This isn't one of those cheesy '80s slasher flicks, and we're not dime-a-dozen stock characters. Nobody's going to _die_ here, man. Like I told Jen, you'll have something to tell the friends back home, huh?"

And while Derrick still did not look like he approved of the idea, he walked forward, joining the people that were his friends more out of circumstance than by sheer choice.


	2. Kristen: Fury

**DISCLAIMER: **I dont' own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or any characters within the films. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

**Fury**

It was 2:00 a.m., in local time existent only in the middle of the Pacific ocean.

_And as of this moment, I'm the only person on this flight who's still awake,_ thought Kristen.

She threw a glance around the rest of the plane. Jen occupied the aisle seat next to her; she had called the window on the way over, and the two had agreed that it was only fair that Kristen get the same treatment on the way back. It hadn't occurred to Kristen that Jen would still be getting the better end of the deal; the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean was no doubt much more majestic during the daylight hours, which is what had transpired five days ago when they had first begun the trip.

Kristen could not sleep; the trip had been just as fun and invigorating as she imagined it would be, and while in Tokyo, she had only been reaffirmed that her goal had been accomplished.

_Just a few more months, _Kristen had thought repeatedly to herself during the trip. _Just a few more months and I can be away from it all, away from him…_

Kristen was suddenly broken out of her trance by a loud crash at the back of the plane. Her head instinctively jerked backward, and she craned her neck over her seat to catch a glimpse of what had just happened. A dish had fallen off one of the serving trays at the small foyer that separated their section from the smaller cluster of seats at the very back of the plane, and two flight attendants were already hastily in the act of cleaning up the mess.

Kristen sighed. She had been on edge ever since the moment she had stepped foot on the plane. She did not like flying; the very notion of being trapped in an enclosed space, trapped with absolutely no option of leaving in case of an emergency, scared Kristen. Of course, the plane also meant that her home world awaited, which scared Kristen even more.

_Just a few more months…_

She looked around the plane. An elderly woman several rows behind her had woken up with the loud crash a few moments earlier, and showed the signs of being awoken from a very deep sleep.

The plane itself was only half full with passengers; she and Jen occupied the two window-side seats at the middle of their coach section, while the remaining members of the Chester Donovan Japan trip occupied the seats around her. Evan and Carly were seated directly in front of her row, curled up together, enjoying each other's company even in sleep. Tim sat across from them in the larger middle section. He slept in a very uncomfortable position; half of his torso hung over the arm rests, his head and much of his chest occupying the space in the aisle.

Kristen looked behind her; all by himself in the two-seat window section behind her sat Derrick Martin, his eyes closed, the movement underneath his eyes telling Kristen that he was well into the stage of REM sleep.

Derrick had been in Kristen's mind a lot over the past two days, ever since their entire group had gone into the stupid haunted house that Tim couldn't go on living without exposing himself, and the rest of his friends, to. While he was an athlete, he had a way about him that was very polite, very thoughtful, while at the same time very articulate and direct. He was very different from most of the other boys at school.

The thoughts only took Kristen further into the abyss of the loneliness that awaited her, and she sank back into her own chair. Wistfully, she looked out her window.

Blackness was all that awaited her. She looked down, knowing that the ocean was what lay waiting at the end of the shroud. She looked closer, and closer – she let her eyes adjust, and finally, she could see some of the faint ripples of water. To Kristen, they seemed to be a million miles away.

_Lucky Jen,_ Kristen thought, _she got to see this in the daytime…_

Wanting the reassurance of the presence of her friends, she tilted her head upward, looking for the reflection of Jen in the window. Once again, her eyes took a minute to adjust, and the reflection gradually became clear. And when it did, Kristen felt the air rise up within her chest.

In the place of Jen was something that could not possibly be there. A small boy, perhaps ten years old. He wasn't sitting in the seat; rather, he was squatting, with his arms resting on his raised knees. He was not looking at her; his eyes wore an expressionless, almost corpse-like stare as he gazed forward, transfixed by the very act of being. His skin was purely white, almost albino in appearance, but the black hair and subtle facial features that she herself held told Kristen that this was an Asian boy.

Her head snapped to the left; the boy was not there. In his place was Jen, sound asleep, just as she had expected to see in the mirror.

Kristen closed her eyes. Occasionally, she would have bad nightmares, and she found herself going through the usual motions of rationalizing what she had just seen. She counted to five, told herself that what she had just seen was some sort of isolated incident cropping up in her mind due to where she had just been, and a result of the fear of what awaited her at home.

But why a boy?

Kristen reopened her eyes. She looked around the plane again; the elderly woman who had been awoken by the crash had fallen back asleep. Everyone, and everything, was back to normal. There was no sign of the boy anywhere.

Kristen sighed once again, satisfied with herself and her ritual. She convinced herself that anxiety had created the boy.

_Sleep would be good right now…_

She closed her eyes, and began waiting patiently for the fatigue to overcome her body and lull her into an unconscious state…

_Cccccc rrrrrr oooooo aaaaaa kkkkk……_

Her eyes snapped open, and her head jerked backward yet again, scanning the area behind her…

The sound had come from behind her – perhaps several rows, although as it had gone on it sounded like it was getting closer. The sound was also utterly unique; Kristen could think of nothing even remotely similar to it that her auditory senses had absorbed before. A mixture of clicking and croaking. But something about it – its pattern, or the fact that it most assuredly was not a result of any piece of machinery related to the plane, unnerved Kristen.

Sleep was now the last thing on her mind.

Her eyes darted around as she pulled herself up into a kneeling position on the chair, looking around the plane at the multitudes of unconscious people…

_CCCCCCC RRRRRRR OOOOO AAAAA KKKKK…_

The sound was closer – much closer. Directly underneath her seat.

Kristen panicked. She jumped off of her seat, and detected Jen let out a quick "Hey…" before running down the aisle.

She did not know what her goal was; something about the noise touched a nerve with her, and disturbed her in a way that nothing, even with everything she had endured at home throughout the course of her life, could disturb her. She wanted to be away from it.

Kristen found the bathroom at the cutoff point between the two sections of coach, opened the door, and quickly shut it.

She did not like enclosed spaces, and disliked them even more now. The light in the bathroom needed changing; it flickered eerily, lighting the tiny washroom in a few millisecond-long intervals before staying on for good a few seconds after she shut the door.

Kristen held her hand on the door; whatever the thing was, it was on the outside, and she was in here.

She waited a few moments, her hand trembling against the handle.

_Ccccccc rrrrrrr oooooo aaaaaa kkkkk…._

It was right outside the door.

_Oh God, oh my God oh my God…_

Kristen's hand tightened around the handle – it did not move. Her ears detected something new – a scraping sound, coming from just outside the door.

_Whatever it is, it's trying to get in here…it's trying to get me…_

She began crying, although she was not aware of it. The scraping continued, gaining in intensity and loudness.

_Why isn't anyone coming to help? There's somebody out there!_

And just as suddenly as it had come, the scraping stopped. The light source in the bathroom stopped for one agonizing second before coming back to life, bathing Kristen in the comforting yellow glow.

For ten seconds, Kristen continued to grasp the handle, afraid that whoever, or whatever, was on the outside of the door was merely playing possum, waiting for her to let her guard down.

Kristen was suddenly aware of the wetness emanating from her eyes.

She looked to the mirror, seeing the familiar sight look back at her. She was a pretty girl, possessing big eyes reminiscent of an Asian animation character, and long, flowing dark hair that was the result of her father's heritage. At this moment, however, Kristen did not feel pretty; she still felt terrified, although she knew that she would have to do something about the puffiness of her eyes and the running makeup.

She reached for the toilet paper to wipe the tears away, then looked back up at the mirror…

In the place of her own reflection stood a ghastly woman – her skin was as pure white as the boy's skin in the reflection of the window. Her own hair was long, flowing, and quite beautiful, and she wore a tattered white dress over her upper body.

The image on her face would be indelibly burned on Kristen Ng. Very different from the boy's emotionless face, the face of this woman bore an expression of pure hatred. The woman's throat was cut; blood coated the skin around her mouth and neck. Her eyes burned into Kristen's as she felt her heart rise up in her throat.

But before she could scream, the terrible woman lurched forward and, in a manner not unlike a black hole on a science fiction television show, the mirror itself rippled as the woman's forehead seemed to pass right through it, the strange "croaking" sound now deafening as Kristen felt the woman's cold hand around her throat, and felt her head pass into blackness.


	3. Evan: Rage

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge" or any characters from the films contained within this story. Feedback is appreciated as well as constructive criticism.

Evan

**Rage**

While Evan Daniels was at least mildly interested in what lay inside the really quite average but indescribably spooky-looking house, he had to admit to himself that the only reason he had even agreed to enter in the first place had absolutely nothing to do with thrills and absolutely everything to do with the girl in his arms.

He hadn't told her yet, but Evan was absolutely crazy about Carly Smith, and was even toying with the notion that he was in love with her.

_The Big L word,_ Evan thought to himself, as he and Carly entered the house directly behind Tim. _Who would have thought?_

Of course, she was a knockout. Long black hair, deep brown eyes, and an incredible body to boot. To this day, despite his status as a football star, he couldn't believe that Carly Smith had agreed to date him.

In fact, the only reason that Evan had even gone on this trip in the first place had been to spend more time with Carly. He was aware of the fact that he was growing increasingly restless each time he and Carly had to spend time apart. While his girlfriend would be going to Ithaca in the fall, he himself would be miles away regardless of which school he chose, although he was leaning toward Maryland. It would mean a long bus ride back to New York City as opposed to the weekend-changing flight that would be required from Alabama. But as each day passed, Evan found himself growing sad that his old life would be leaving him behind.

Evan looked around the house, tightening his grip on Carly, hoping that she was scared and ready for some comfort. She did not protest – she almost never did. He liked this about her.

_This doesn't look like no haunted house,_ Evan thought. _Haunted house are supposed to be all old and rinky-dink. This places looks like it was just used yesterday!_

While the house was completely empty and devoid of all furniture, there were none of the telltale signs that come with a house that hasn't been occupied in a long time. There were no cobwebs, no large collections of dust. The air did not have the musty, damp smell of neglect.

_Somehow,_ Evan thought, _this house feels alive…_

Evan looked back – Kristen and Jen had already entered the house behind them, and way in the back stood Derrick, still a little nervous about crossing the entrance.

He looked directly into Evan's eyes – just as he had before he had agreed to come inside, his eyes told the entire story. _I don't like this, man…_

Evan shot him a look back, raising his head upward and turning his eyebrows downward. _Ah, quit being a pussy…_

Derrick seemed to immediately pick up on the message, as his face showed distaste – but yet he walked into the house anyway, looking around as he did so.

"I can't believe it. This is where it happened," Tim suddenly said, his eyes fixed on the stairs. The stairs jutted up one way, and after six or seven of them took a ninety-degree turn where an upstairs hallway awaited. Tim, however had his eyes trained on the first set, and seemed to be considering scaling them to the second level of the house. The rest of the group had already begun to spread out in a larger room that must have at one point been a dining area.

"Where what happened?"

Tim turned around – the rest of the group had stopped their nervous motions, and had all simultaneously turned to Tim. _He's about to launch into one of his nerd rants,_ Evan thought, feeling Carly's hand clasp around his own. All-too-happy to oblige, he tightened his own grip.

Evan took in his surroundings. The room to their right had definitely been a dining area, as it still showed four distinct marks in the wood floor from a heavy table. Just in front of them was a small hallway that led to a kitchen, and to their left was the stairs. For the first time, Evan noticed that the very top of the stairs had a small barred area within its wall where someone could look down at passer-bys – or wait for an impromptu attack…

Tim, ever-the-showman, climbed the first step to take a position slightly above the rest of the group. "This whole house," he said, devilish smile on his face. "Murders happened here."

"Whoa, man, you didn't say anything about any murders," Evan said.

"This is a haunted house, Evan, most of the time places don't acquire unrested spirits due to peaceful death," Tim said. "No, what we have here is a grisly double murder. Triple, if you count the cat."

"So who died here?" Kristen said. Evan looked in her direction – she had taken a position in between Jen and Derrick, and while her voice sounded strong, Evan sensed that she herself was seeking some kind of protection.

"A family of three lived here," Tim said. _Oh boy, I knew it – he couldn't hold off for long. _"What we are in right now is commonly known throughout Tokyo as _the Saeki house._ There was a father, a mother, and a little boy. And all three of them are now dead."

"Let me guess," Kristen said. "Axe murder."

"No," Tim responded. "What makes you say that?"

"In pretty much every town, there's some stereotypical axe murder case, usually involving a close-knit family. Usually smaller towns, but most of the big cities have at least one axe murder house."

"Good guess, and great story, but no," Tim said. "No, what we have here is the classic jealous husband story."

"The mother – she was cheating on the husband?" Derrick asked.

"Not technically. See, this is a long story, people. The mother's name was Kayako. Her maiden name has long since been forgotten, but her story is unfortunately a pretty common one. She married a man that she did not really know. And Takeo Saeki was most assuredly someone that you did not want to know."

"What would he do? Did he beat her?" Derrick said.

"When she was lucky," Tim said. "Takeo was a specialist in the most exquisite forms of cruelty."

"Exquisite forms of cruelty, huh?" Kristen suddenly piped in. "Tim, can I ask you something? Did you practice this whole speech?"

"In front of my mirror with the pages printed off of Shadowlands just a few days before we left the ground. Your point is?"

"Nothing, just wondering."

"Good. No, Takeo didn't just beat her, although nobody seems to know just what he did. Some people said he would lock her up for weeks at a time, but that's never been confirmed. But eventually, Kayako found the person that she thought would be her ticket out of all this. Kobayashi."

"Who's Kobayashi?" Evan said, a little more interest in his voice than he had intended.

"Purely by chance, her son's schoolteacher, who also happened to be a former classmate. Kayako fell in love with Kobayashi, to the point that her every waking moment was spent dreaming up fantasies of two things. Getting away from Takeo, and getting Kobayashi all to herself. Kind of hard with two married people, though, especially when one of them is happy."

"So how does this relate to that staircase?" Kristen said.

"I'm getting to it," Tim said, his eyebrows arching upward, proud at the effect he was having on his friends. "Not only did Kayako follow Kobayashi around, she kept a journal of everything she did in relation to Kobayashi. Only she didn't hide it well enough. One day, Takeo found the journal…"

Evan did not want to admit it to himself, but his tightening grip around Carly's hand was not to comfort Carly, but for himself.

"…and from there, the proverbial shit hit the fan. It wasn't just his family that Takeo took his rage out on. Kayako got it first..."

"Jesus, man, what did he do?" Evan said.

"Nobody knows for sure what he did first, but ultimately, he sliced her throat with a utility knife," Tim said, making a cutting motion with his arms. "Toshio, their son, saw everything – he was sitting right there…"

Tim pointed to the small viewing area at the top of the stairs that had caught Evan's eye earlier. _Jesus…_

"...this is where the story seems to get a little hazy. Some people say that he drowned the boy, others that he locked him in the closet and starved him to death, but that seems unlikely. Strange thing is, Toshio was never found. He just up and disappeared without a trace, but everyone assumes that Takeo killed him and hid him somehow. But none of this is the best part."

"Which is?" Kristen said.

"Takeo still had to dispose of the body. He wrapped up Kayako in a garbage bag, then tried to dump her off out on the streets for the morning trash to pick up. But that pickup never happened. The authorities found Takeo dead on the streets, with a look of pure terror on his face. They say that Kayako took her revenge on Takeo that day, and that she and Toshio still haunt this building to this day."

"Great story, Tim," Kristen said. _She's smiling,_ Evan said, suddenly feeling not-so-masculine. "And you told it really well."

"This is no story, Kristen. This is very real."

"Bullshit," Evan said, trying to interject as much false bravado into his voice as he could muster.

"You said it," Carly said, reaching upward and grasping Evan around the neck.

_Suddenly, this trip took a big downer,_ Evan thought to himself, happy for the comfort that Carly provided.


	4. Evan: Fury

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or the characters of Kayako and Toshio Saeki. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

**Fury**

"How about Tim's little side journey, though? That cost us half a day!" Carly said, rolling her eyes to no one in particular as they walked hand-in-hand through the busy shopping mall.

"I couldn't wait to get out of there," Evan responded, somehow not feeling as cool as his button-down shirt, khaki shorts and flip flops let on. In addition, he hadn't shaved in over a week, and had been letting his curly blonde hair grow out. Carly had told him that she liked this look on him; as per usual, he obeyed the wishes of Carly.

Evan looked around the mall. As of this moment, he and Carly had passed the food court, the busy streets of New York City clearly visible from the all-glass foyer that served as the entrance to the mall. He and Carly were both busy at work getting ready for summer, and had already begun stocking up on a few summer essentials in the various higher-end clothing stores in the shopping center.

"Tell me about it," Carly said, smiling as she did so. _No matter what I'm feeling, that look makes me feel better. _"We could've been having fun that day, but instead we had to go on one of Tim's little nerd tours. Surprised he didn't take us along to…what was that thing he went to last summer again?"

"It was a horror convention."

"A horror convention. What do they do at those things anyway?"

"He only talked to me about it for a little bit. Supposedly they go around and get people's autographs and stuff."

"That doesn't sound like very much fun."

"Different strokes for different folks."

"So what do you think possessed him to drag all of us along to that stupid house, anyway?"

"Who knows with Tim," Evan said as he grabbed Carly with both of his arms, pulling her into a tight bear hug, not even caring that there were countless people walking around them at this moment. Carly pulled up the bag containing the clothing purchases she had made throughout the day to her neck. "Who cares about that house, anyway?"

"Evan!" she said, laughing to herself.

"What?"

"There's people around!"

"Who cares?" Evan said, kissing Carly on the mouth. Not surprisingly, she reciprocated the gesture. They broke, returning to their normal walking gait.

"What is it with you and that house, anyway?" Carly said, still laughing at the spontaneity of the embrace.

"I don't know what it is, Carly. There was just something about it. I just had this feeling."

"Really? What kind of feeling."

"I can't explain it. And we were in there for so goddamn _long."_

"Evan, we were only in there for 20 minutes. Half an hour, at the max."

"You're telling me you weren't scared?"

"Well, I was at first. When he was telling his story and going through his usual Johnny Depp overacting spiel. But after that – it was just a house, Evan. For all we know, Tim was making it all up. He could've picked it at random, as weird as he can be sometimes."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right. But it still felt weird, you know? Like when you're in a really crowded room for a long time. Suffocating."

"Suffocating, huh? That place really spooked you!"

"Yeah, it did."

"I know something that'll make it better." Evan looked down, admiring the curves of Carly's shapely body. He had taken her in when he had first picked her up to come to the mall; somehow, in the act of talking about the house, he had forgotten. As it had warmed up in the big city within the last three weeks, the clothing styles of everyone at Chester Donovan had matched. Carly shined more than all the others in the warm weather, with her tiny shorts and tank top leaving little to Evan's imagination.

"When?"

"Later tonight. My parents aren't going to be home."

"Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"I just kind of wanted to spring it on you. Wanted to see the look on your face. Goal achieved on that one."

"Shit, Carly. That just made my day."

"I was hoping."

It was amazing the effect that a little quality time with Carly had on his psyche, Evan thought to himself, yanking down the zipper of his shorts and beginning the tried-and-true method of urinating through a zipper hole. Surprisingly, no one else occupied this particular men's room.

Carly had said that the bag was getting a little heavy; she needed to go outside to her car and drop it off. Taking the initiative, Evan had seen this as an opportunity to relieve himself while not in her presence.

It had been a week since their Tokyo trip had ended. Another full week back at school; the spring sports season had already ended, which meant that Evan Daniels had participated in the last Chester Donovan track meet of his career. However, this also meant that baseball season was about to go into full swing, and coach Myers had already begun to work the boys hard. Evan was the team's pitcher; once, while completely away from the other members of the team, Myers had told him that the pitcher is always the best athlete on the team. As he always did, Evan took the advice to heart, seeing this as motivation to train even harder than he would have without knowing the complimentary information. As such, he had a spectacular season last summer, and was looking forward to another standout effort this year.

Today, though, had been the first Saturday since touching down in the States; as per usual, he was spending it with Carly. He wouldn't have it any other way. But for some strange reason, he _needed _the time with Carly this week.

There had been a lot of weirdness this week; it had been occurring ever since he had entered that house. That _damned_ house.

There had been the feeling; it hadn't gone away since he left the house. The feeling of suffocation, and occasional bouts of sheer panic. As if someone, or something, was standing directly behind him, looking at him with an expression of pure hatred, arms outstretched and ready to choke the life out of him at any moment. It went away intermittently; it had today when he had been in the mall, with thousands of other spectators, and most importantly with Carly.

There had been Kristen's incident on the plane ride back from Japan. Jen had told him the day after it happened that when Kristen ran past her, she had looked more terrified than she had ever seen her, and that when she called out to her she seemed to be a million miles away. She had disappeared into the bathroom; after thirty minutes, Jen had grown worried, and the flight attendants had knocked on the door.

There had been no answer. There had only been Kristen, on the floor, passed out. When she came to, she told a story about a strange woman in the mirror trying to kill her.

Evan himself had been one of the people who had tried to comfort her to no avail after heareing her story, and finally, after both Jen and Carly offered her assistance and sat with her on the plane (it was amazing how other females could comfort girls, Evan had thought as he watched the scene unfold), Kristen had calmed down. But the look on her face told the entire story. She had seen _something._ Something that scared her to her core.

There had been strange incidents during the night throughout the week. Strange scratching sounds coming from the attic of his house on the outskirts of the city – sounds that he had never heard before in his life. And just last night, he had heard a strange clicking sound coming from all the way up there. Clicking that sounded, in some way, that it might be coming from something _human…_

_CCCCCCCCC RRRRRRR OOOOOO AAAAA KKKKK…_

Evan was in the last stages of urination when he heard the sound – it was clear as day, and much louder than when he heard it last night, laying in bed and bathed in sweat.

_It was in the bathroom stall right next to him…_

Without thinking, Evan zipped up his jeans, letting the last few drops stain his pants, and quickly hopped backward. There were two urinals near the entrance to the bathroom, followed by the two stalls. The sound had come from the first stall.

Evan looked at the door, well aware of his own terrified face in the bathroom's mirror. The door slowly opened as Evan began backing away toward the bathroom door.

_CCCCCCC RRRRRRR OOOOOOO AAAAA KKKK…_

All Evan saw coming out of the stall was a long, black shroud – but from the way it flowed and angled, it was apparent that this was a woman's hair.

Evan cared to see no more. He turned around and bolted out of the bathroom, running down the empty hallway that led to both bathrooms. He had been prepared to warn people of the danger that lurked inside; he was glad he didn't need to.

Upon reaching the main hallways of the mall, looking out at countless stores and pedestrians, he immediately picked out the form of Carly, who had entered the mall from one of the side doors. She spotted him almost immediately, waving to him and smiling.

He ran to her.

"Evan, what the…"

He grabbed her hand. "We have to go."

"Evan, what the hell's going on…"

"Shut up. We just have to get out of here."

Carly's silence was understood. Evan was well aware of the fact that he was different from other guys she had been with, and was proud of the fact that Carly had once told her that he was the most honest guy she had ever met. And he wouldn't lie if he was truly frightened for her safety.

She stopped protesting, allowing herself to be led away from the direction of the bathrooms...

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_What the hell was that thing…_

Evan had been alone in his house now for twenty minutes. He had locked all the doors; he had even called Carly at home to make sure she was okay.

_Somehow, she followed me…but who the hell is she?_

_And that sound-God, that sound…_

Evan walked to his window. The living room of his house was very spacious, with a ridiculously large television mounted on one side of the room, and posh furniture dotting the landscape all the way to a large window overlooking the front yard.

There was nobody there. No burglars, no attackers, no terrible croaking women.

Evan sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. His parents were away; regardless of what was going on with Carly, he had been planning on spending the night with her one way or the other. But at this moment, Evan wished badly for their presence.

_Stupid family get-togethers,_ Evan thought to himself. _Maybe I SHOULD have gone…_

And then Evan heard another sound – but one that was unmistakable. It was coming from the second level of the house, in the room directly above his own first floor bedroom.

But the sound did not scare him, although it intrigued him. It was the meowing of a cat.

Evan turned around, looking past the dining room and to the wood door that led to the stairs. He quickly made his way across the area, opened the door, and began climbing the stairs. He heard it again, and again.

_How the hell did a cat get in there? Poor thing's probably starving, with all the goddamn noise it's making._

He reached the top of the stairs. The second level of the Daniels home was really nothing more than for show; he was an only child. There had never been a need for extra bedroom space, although there were two empty rooms on either side of the base of the stairway built specifically for that purpose. He rounded a corner, stepping past the bedrooms, headed directly for the large wooden door at the end of the hallway. The attic.

He heard the sound again. It had picked up in intensity.

_A freaking cat,_ he thought to himself. _Is that what's been making all the noise up here? I've been scared of a cat?_

Evan opened the door. The inside of their attic was stuffed with tons of old boxes. The room was about ten feet high, and there were probably close to a hundred boxes containing all the knickknacks that his parents had picked up over the years. They were successful – his father was a doctor and his mother was a radiologist. Antiquing had been their vice, and stupidly, neither ever seemed to look at their purchases, leaving most of them to rot up here.

There was a small lightbulb in the dingy room, turned on only by an old-fashioned hand string. He pulled it, casting the cut off room in an eerie yellow glow.

There was something different. In the middle of the room, surrounded by the boxes, was a large black stain that hadn't been there the last time he had been in this room.

_What the…_

Evan took two steps in, and suddenly, the door snapped shut behind him.

He snapped backward, looking at the door, feeling his resolve and strength leave him already…

_Oh Jesus…_

Then he heard it again – the meowing.

He looked to the center of the room again.

Standing directly behind the stain on the floor was a small boy, no older than ten years old. He was shirtless, and wore only shorts. He was no doubt Asian in nationality, but his skin…

_My God, what the hell's wrong with him – he's pure white!_

The terrifying boy opened his mouth as if to speak…but no words came out. Instead came the meow of a cat.

Evan opened his own mouth, feeling the scream escape from it without even hearing the sound.

The boy continued to scream his feline scream – and then something emerged from the stain in the floor. The top of a woman's head – and the long, flowing black hair, unmistakably the same as the hair he had seen in the mall bathroom…

_She's coming out of the stain…_

The eyes followed, followed by a face, and then shoulders.

Evan had already turned around and tried to open the door many times, to no avail. This was a nightmare come to life.

It was a woman, and her eyes burned into his. Her mouth, face, and throat was stained with blood, and in one motion, the remainder of the woman's body somehow crawled out of the stain. The woman herself remained prostrate on the ground, and began crawling toward him, her body contorting with a sick precision, almost as if she was in great pain – but yet wanted to inflict great pain on _him…_

The woman inched toward him, closer and closer, and all the while Evan screamed, attempting to open the door simultaneously as he did so.

And just before the terrible woman reached him, Evan's last conscious thought was that the woman was still making that same sound, like some sort of psychotic frog hell bent on destroying everything that was good and decent in his life.


	5. Jen: Rage

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or any characters from said films. Feedback and constructive criticism are welcome.

Jen

**Rage**

"Listen, I don't know how many times I can say it, Tim. But it won't happen."

Jen turned to her left, seeing the reflection of both herself and Tim in the glass door that led from the inside of the house to the small garden-like area of the backyard. It was really quite beautiful out here; the family that had lived in this house definitely had nice scenery to look at.

_Until they died, that is…_

She looked down and smiled. Despite her better judgment, she found the whole scene cute; in the end, it was just a slightly dorky but nice guy telling a girl that he liked her.

Of course, Tim had done this a few times before; actually, a few would be an understatement, as Tim Orlock had been a constance in her life ever since ninth grade when they had first come to Chester Donovan from different middle schools.

Jen, of course, had been one of the higher-ranking members of the popular clique. One day, when she had been in fifth grade, she had taken a good look at herself in the mirror, and seen that she had long blonde hair, a lithe figure, and big, pretty blue eyes that stood out from a crowd. Ever since that day, she had not taken the fact that she had been given one of nature's rarer gifts for granted, cultivating her appearance as much as she could.

The strategy had worked; she had found popularity, and as she had found was often the case with attractive girls, success as well. She had landed three teen modeling gigs last year, and had received calls for several more offers once she graduated high school. And while she didn't even dream of telling her parents, she was hoping to talk them out of the big _C_ word – college – someday soon and convince them to let her go to France for a year. She had been told that the big Paris was the place to go if modeling was your career goal of choice.

For as crazy as her life had been throughout high school – with all the trappings of social ladders, schoolwork, and captaining the cheerleading squad (which had been her ticket on this very trip), two friendships had grounded Jen throughout her four-year ride at Chester Donovan. They were two people whom no one would have ever suspected would be Jen's best friends, but Kristen Ng and Tim Orlock were most definitely her best friends.

Jen tried her best in school, but reading, writing and arithmetic just weren't strong suits for her. Unwilling to give up quickly, she had quickly sought out peer tutoring in her freshmen year. She had known Kristen ever since grade school, and she had quickly agreed to help her out in the subjects that she was gifted with. However, it was here that she had met Tim Orlock for the first time. Kristen was the English and social studies wizard, while Tim was the math and science guru. Jen often wondered where her life would be without these two extraordinary people.

Of course, Tim had fallen for her almost immediately; at the time, as hard as it was to believe, he had been a LOT more geeky than he was now. Hopelessly gawky, socially inept, and, worst of all, the wearer of the most indiscreet set of braces in all of Chester Donovan. Still, she could see the nice, funny side of Tim. And Tim, in typical fashion, saw an attractive girl who did not immediately dismiss him, and had thus had his hopes up ever since.

_Poor Tim,_ Jen thought, looking up, and surprisingly seeing Tim's smiling face.

"I'm really sorry, Tim, I just don't see you like that."

"It's okay," he said in response. He stood near a large tree in the middle of the yard, the greens of the lagoon-like area meshing humorously with his black t-shirt with Michael Myers' face screen-printed on top. "You know, someday, your resolve is going to wear out. One day I'm going to ask you out so many times that you'll say yes just out of pure exasperation."

Tim laughed as he said this; not in a nervous way, but in a genuine way. Jen had little choice but to laugh herself, and Tim sat down next to her on the cement block that served as the conduit between the house and the backyard.

"So where did everybody else go?" Jen said.

"Different parts of the house. Why didn't you stay inside after I told the story?"

"Because the story freaked me out. Screw writing. You need to go into acting."

"I've been told that more than once."

"Well, why didn't you? I told you all the time that you should go out for the plays. And the musicals."

"There is no way I'm singing in front of people."

"Well, not every role is a singing role…"

"That's just way too much pressure. I don't know if I'd be able to live with myself if I screwed up."

"How can you be scared of that when you've found it so easy over all these years to ask me out?"

"That's different. I'm confident with you."

"Why?"

"Because _you're_ different, Jen. You're nicer than most of the people at the school."

"Believe me, I'm not different. I'll bet if you told that story to everyone in school, and somehow got them all inside this house, they'd be scared, too."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Well, you didn't answer my question. Where did everyone else go?"

"Well, Carly and Evan went upstairs to check out the room where the journal was kept. Or so they say."

"I'll bet. Probably engaging in some extracurricular activities as we speak."

"Most likely. Derrick is probably still in the front entryway."

"What's his deal, anyway?"

"Don't know."

"He seems to know something we don't."

"There are a lot of stories about this house, Jen. There's a story about the room that we just walked through to get here."

"This room?" she said, looking through the glass door. It was a rectangular room, very typical of Japanese homes. It was a room that was undoubtedly reserved as a bedroom at one point.

"Yeah," Tim said, his eyes lighting up. "You know, the Saekis weren't the only family to live here. Two years ago, another family moved in. I didn't want to tell those guys inside this story, but I'll tell you."

"What happened in that room?"

"This new family didn't last long."

"What, these ghosts that you just won't shut up about drove them out like in every cheesy ghost story ever told, or what?"

"There were three of them. A husband, a wife, and a mother-in-law. One day, a volunteer with one of the care centers was sent over here to check up on the mother-in-law – real elderly and invalid. She found her, but she wouldn't talk. She wouldn't even move, she just stared straight ahead. The volunteer later told the authorities that she'd seen the boy inside the house watching her, and that she'd later seen a huge, dark cloud descend over the mother-in-law and smother her. The authorities came later – they found the volunteer passed out, and they found all three bodies of the family inside the house. The mother-in-law in that room, right there."

He said the last sentence as he pointed to the room inside the glass door.

"You're shitting me," Jen said in response, casting a nervous glance at the door, and the room beyond it.

"Yup."

"I can't believe you let me walk through there!"

"I thought you didn't believe the story," he said, smiling his usual dorky "I've got you" smile. And for some reason, the expression once again made Jen smile herself.

"Do you know where Kristen went?"

"She said she wanted to see the boy's room. Thinks there might even be some clue as to where he went up there, after all these years."

"Her and that psychology crap."

"You want to go find her?" Tim said, standing up on the cement block and opening the door.

Jen found herself quickly rising to her feet, her sandals giving her little support after hearing Tim's new story. And as Tim re-entered the house, she grabbed his arm as he entered the room.

"See?" he said, looking back at her and taking a step back inside. "Wearing down your resolve."

"Shut up and don't read any more into this than me being scared."

"Yeah, right, Jen. Just keep telling yourself that."


	6. Jen: Fury

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge" or the characters of Kayako and Toshio. Feedback and constructive criticism are welcome.

**Fury**

_Where the hell did everyone go…_

Jen looked around the subway car in a daze. The party had ended over an hour ago; a local punk band had been playing at one of the more posh clubs directly in the center of the big city. As per usual, Jen had been invited by some of the more prominent members of the Chester Donovan elite; indeed, having the proper social connections had quite the distinct advantage when it came time to Saturday nights.

She had also spent the better part of the afternoon attempting to see if any of her friends wanted something to do on THIS particular Saturday night, and, if so, if that something was a bitchin' party, with maybe a few alcoholic beverages consumed, without adult supervision and totally and completely without inhibition. She had called Kristen first, despite the fact that she suspected she knew the answer before the call was even placed. Nope, Kristen had said, she couldn't. Her father was already in the opening stages of the clampdown immediately before her departure for college, and Saturday nights were already reserved for protracted bitching sessions.

_Protracted bitching sessions,_ Jen had thought at the time. _She certainly has a way with words._

Then she had called Carly, half-expecting what to hear on that front as well. Sure enough, her suspicions had once again been confirmed. Carly was on full Evan detail – the two of them would be spending the entire day together, starting at the mall, then maybe going back Carly's for something that Jen would no doubt hear the endless details of in the ensuing days from Evan. Normally, Jen found Evan to be fairly boring, but when it came to the subject of sex, he was a storyteller rivaling the explicit detail of the Penthouse forum.

So, she had spent the night rocking out to the sweet sounds of the hot new local scream band, and enjoying the company of the usual popular crowd members that she saw every week at the Chester Donovan get-togethers. In Jen's mind, it had been a decent time; it hadn't rivaled the time that Kristen had actually decided to join her when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs came back to town, but there were worse ways to kill a Saturday night.

While Kristen had turned down the invitation to join the party, she had agreed to take her usual post in regards to Jen's parents – buffer space. Kristen's house was Jen's de facto excuse when attending these soirees, and Kristen, good friend that she was, was ever-accomodating when it came to the stories checking out with her parents. Thomas and Jennifer Young liked and trusted Kristen Ng a great deal; they didn't mind their daughter buying bus tickets or taking the subway across the city by herself to spend time with the innocent nerd that they knew Kristen as.

When she had boarded the subway after the party over an hour ago, the car she had occupied had been packed to capacity, just as it usually was around midnight on Saturday night.

And just a few seconds ago, her eyes had opened.

_It's empty…_

Jen stood up, still wearing her tight, form-fitting blouse and blue jeans from the concert. The lights from the subway tunnel whizzed by at a breakneck speed, casting a yellow glow into the car seemingly every millisecond.

Jen looked out the window. As far as the eye could see, there was only the walls; no stops were in front of or behind the car. Inside the enclosure, the seats at the side of the car seemed to be mocking her; the handles on top of the car dangled from side to side as the subway car continued to lurch forward.

Jen had been seated in the middle of the car, and began to walk forward toward the front of the vehicle.

_It's darker in here than it was before,_ she thought as she took a few steps toward the door separating her car from the one in front of it, a small circular window being her point of ordinarily these cars made her feel a little uneasy with their brightness, almost as if the light bulbs were in contact with her eyeballs, the car seemed duller, almost like a tomb.

_Like a tomb…_

Jen reached the door, and looked through the window.

There were no passengers in the car in front of her.

A small rush of panic passed over Jen, and she felt herself break out into a cold sweat.

_Jesus Christ, how long was I asleep?_ Over the years, she had heard many stories, most of them undoubtedly false urban legends, about gangs that patrolled these subway cars late at night, long after the majority of people had exited, picking out attractive women to have their way with. At this moment, all of those stories came rushing back to Jen in a tidal wave.

She backed away from the door, not wanting to think about her current situation. She couldn't get around it, and at this moment, she wanted nothing more than to find someone else. _Anyone_ else.

She didn't want to panic, but nonetheless she found herself half-walking and half-jogging toward the back end of the car. In less than twenty seconds, she had reached it, and began peering through the small circular window separating the two cars.

Jen let out a sigh of relief; there was somebody else in this same predicament. And more than likely, this person was just as scared as she was.

Toward the back of the car stood a woman, maybe thirty years old, with her back to Jen. Her hair was long and black, and she wore a white dress that looked more like something that someone would wear as a nightgown. From her positioning, it looked like the woman was going through the same motions that she herself was going through; looking for another soul on this empty train.

_Maybe she knows where we are, or what time it is,_ thought Jen as she opened the door and stepped into the car.

"Hey, you! Where the hell did everybody go?" she called out to the woman, perhaps fifty feet away from her as she began walking toward the back end of the car.

The woman did not answer, and in a manner that frightened and even slightly disturbed Jen, she did not even move. The figure seemed like she was in a trance.

Jen grew impatient. _God, what's wrong with her? Isn't she as scared as I am? _"Hey, do you happen to know where we are? What's the next stop?"

She was twenty feet away now. Once again, the woman did nothing to indicate that she had heard what Jen had said. Now that Jen was closer to the woman, she could see that her skin was very pale, looking not unlike drowning victims she had once seen in a cable documentary.

Jen was now ten feet away from the woman. While she didn't want to admit it to herself, the woman frightened her, although her frame did not look very imposing. "Hey, I'm talking to you!" she suddenly said, more venom in her voice than she had hoped.

And now the figure moved. She began turning around in a counter-clockwise manner, and as she began turning, Jen noticed that the woman's head was bent downward.

Jen found herself unable to look away as the next few series of events transpired – the streak of blood across the chest of the dress, the extremely strange breathing of the woman that clicked rather than being pushed and pulled in and out in an easy manner, the woman slowly raising her head, and the look of unquestionable hate in the woman's eyes.

Then the woman had taken a step toward her, at which point Jen Young began running as fast as she could toward the front of the subway car.

She reached the door of the first car, and then the one that she had been sitting in within fifteen seconds. She looked behind her. While the woman had looked different from anybody she had ever known, she moved fast.

And the _way_ she moved. _She's not human! _Rather than running after her in the usual stride, the woman moved in a herky-jerky fashion, her feet and arms directed inward at each other, then outward, almost as if she existed in a different plane of space and time than what Jen inhabited. But while she moved in a very disjointed and awkward fashion, she still moved fast, and even appeared to be _gaining_ on Jen…

_Oh shit oh shit oh shit…_

Jen opened the door, then began running through another car. As she ran through the third car, she noticed something happening to the lights. The sets of lights inside the car began dimming, and shockingly, the lights _on the outside wall_ of the subway began getting darker as well. While the vehicle had encompassed the feeling of a casket before, now, the feeling of claustrophobia and death was almost unbearable.

Jen reached another door and opened it, casting another look behind her. The woman was no longer gaining on her; apparently, Jen had picked up her speed, and she started putting some distance on the strange figure whose eyes spoke the language of murder. As she began running through the fourth car, her sense of hearing returned to her.

_Cccccccc rrrrrr ooooo aaaaa kkkkk…_

The sound, while it had not been as pronounced as it had been when she had first reached the woman, was still nonetheless audible as she continued to lumber after her.

_What the hell is wrong with her? Why is she after me?_

As Jen passed through the following car, the lights continued dimming. The door at the end of this car was different from the others, and had the small buffer space in between, along with the visible controls and machinery in the foreground, that indicated that this was where the subway operator resided.

_Dear God, I hope he's a big, buff guy…_

Just as she reached the door, the cars behind her were bathed in pitch blackness. Jen looked backwards one final time, and the strange woman – now perhaps fifty feet behind her – vanished in the consuming darkness. As the woman vanished, Jen thought that the figure's arms appeared longer than they were before, and that they appeared to be using the seats as a kind of springboard to catch up with her.

"Open the goddamn door!" she screamed out as she reached the heavy metallic door, the various nozzles and controls now clearly visible. She could not see the operator, although a chair was present in the front of the car. Through the front windows, she could still see no stops, no identifying values of any kind.

_I'm in an endless ocean of subway…this goes on forever…_

Surprisingly, the door wasn't locked; in a panic, Jen had already begun pawing at the door's handle, and it had quickly given way. She opened it, stepped in, and slammed the door behind her.

Jen could hear rustling coming from the front of the subway car; she began walking toward it.

"Listen, guy, there's somebody after me! Couldn't you hear me screaming at you?"

She reached the seat where the operator usually resided, and she felt herself lose a breath.

There was no operator seated there; in his place was a small boy, and while she had never met these people before in her life, she was dead certain that this boy was connected to the woman. It could be nothing else. His skin was just as sickly and pale as the figure that pursued her, and his hair had the same pure blackness, encompassing the spirit of pure evil. He wore shorts and no shirt; his eyes had an emotionless, blank gaze that was different from the woman's, but they were unmistakably similar.

Jen backed up in the car, unable to scream – and then the boy stood up, turned around, and faced her. He opened his mouth.

Instead of a scream came a high-pitched whine, the sheer intensity of the sound having a debilitating effect on Jen. She covered her ears, fairly successful in blocking out the sound – but then she remembered the _other _danger…

_Oh shit…_

She turned around, the audible yelping of the boy still heard despite her best efforts.

The door was open. The woman stood there, her eyes wide open, her long black hair falling majestically down her face.

She began walking toward Jen, her arms swaying from side to side as she did so.

_CCCCCCCC RRRRRRR OOOOO AAAAAA KKKKKK…_

_Who the hell are these people?_ Jen thought as she began to scream, feeling tears welling up within her eyes. The woman stepped closer and closer to her, the stiltedness of her movements now gone, although her neck and head appeared to be moving in a very unnatural manner…

_Her neck…that's what it is…that's why she's making that sound…_

The thought that the woman that pursued her must have been slit from ear to ear with a sharp knife, and that the blood was choking her - hence the strange clicking sound. The realization that this very fact was impossible for someone who was _alive_ to be pursuing her as quickly as she had was the final terrifying revelation of Jen Young's life as the woman reached her, her hateful eyes inches away from her own as she continued to make the croaking sound…


	7. Interlude: Suffer the Little Children

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge" or any characters from the films. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

**Interlude: Suffer the Little Children**

While the sound would comfort other people in her situation, the silence downstairs was deafening.

Kristen put down her book; a teacher had given her a copy of George Orwell's _1984_ a few weeks ago, and tonight – yet another Saturday night spent by herself in her room – had seemed like as good of a time as any to open the book. Luckily, it was excellent; ordinarily, Kristen did not care for "classical" books, believing them to not be relatable to the modern society. However, in the opening stages of reading about Oceania and Newspeak, Kristen saw certain parallels to the world at large, and most importantly, her own life.

_Big Brother is watching you._

A few hours ago, Jen had called her with one of her usual schemes – party, a few alcoholic beverages, and a band being the words of the night. As per usual, Kristen had been more than ready to ditch the home front for the promises of Jen's admittedly exciting life. And anything beat weekends at the Ng residence…

Also, as per usual, Jen's father had popped open the refrigerator at exactly 8:15 A.M., removed a can of Milwaukee Best, and began slurping the liquid with greedy abandon. The weekly ritual had continued all day.

As of right now, it was 6:30 p.m. Her family still hadn't eaten.

Kristen thought back to her childhood; for as long as she could remember, things had been this way. Her father worked at one of the factories in the industrial park on the graveyard shift, and rarely saw his family all week. He hated his job; on the few occasions when Kristen ran into him during the work week, all he spoke of was his distaste for the people in charge, and the job in general. Usually there were a few curse words spliced in to the rantings.

There had been problems between Lanh and Amanda Ng for many years now, and Kristen was well aware of the fact that not all of it was her father's fault. One of Kristen's first conscious memories involved the time that she had skinned her knee on the sidewalk of their home on the outskirts of the city, at which point her father had taken her inside and cleaned up the cut. Afterward, when she had walked back in to the house's living area, her mother had began screaming at Lanh for no apparent reason other than the fact that he didn't make enough money. She remembered her father going to the refrigerator that day, as well.

But the problems had never gotten any better; over the years, they had only gotten worse. As Kristen had sought to understand her parent's situation as she became an adolescent, and now a scant year away from adulthood, Kristen came to realize that her parents shared what was known as a codependency; both were miserable together, but somehow, some way, both would be much more miserable apart. Therefore, they stayed together, making each other's lives a living hell, pointing out the sheer inadequacies in each other's lives. While Lanh's menial labor job was ripe for the picking, Amanda's status as the black sheep of her family was Lanh's preferred ammunition of choice in their verbal altercations.

Before Kristen had turned ten, the altercations had stopped being strictly verbal. At an early age, Kristen had gotten used to what came on Saturdays; the constant shouts of inadequacy from Amanda, followed by Lanh quickly retreating to the refrigerator. One day, she had heard a loud crash coming from downstairs, and had snuck down the small staircase that separated her living quarters from the main floor to see what had happened. What she had seen was her mother on the floor of the kitchen, her lip bloodied, her arm cradled over her face, and Lanh standing over her. Both of her parents had immediately apologized to her, and told her to go upstairs.

While Lanh himself had been apologetic to her initially while he had been in the opening stages of abusing his own wife, the nice side had quickly vanished. As time had gone on, Lanh began to see Kristen as an extension of his wife. This began to manifest first in Lanh taking away Kristen's social privileges on the weekends, and furthered in more direct forms of abuse.

Two years after the day that Kristen had seen her mother sprawled on the kitchen floor, Lanh had hit her for the first time. At first, it had only been once, but as time went on, the beatings picked up in intensity; at a very young age, Kristen knew nothing of the act. She merely knew that her father loved her, and somehow, while very unpleasant, this was only some sort of punishment for something that she must have done wrong.

But she had grown up. She had discovered psychology, discovered the world of the mind, and eventually discovered Chester Donovan High School, and scholastic achievement as a means to escape the hell that hadn't stopped. Throughout the years, Lanh had turned her household into a veritable prison; her mother no longer worked, wanting only to get up in the morning, take some of her father's money and spend it on heavy drugs, and her father wanted nothing more than sleep on the weekdays, followed by an entire weekend of taking out his frustrations on the two people around him.

After Jen's phone call two hours ago, Kristen had attempted to sneak out of her house. Apparently, she hadn't been sneaking quietly enough. Her father had heard the creaking of the steps as she had walked down from her room, and the second that her hand had touched the front door handle, she had felt the hand on her shoulder.

"Where are you going?" her father had bellowed, his hair looking greasy and disheveled, his mustache untrimmed since last weekend, the smell of the beer that he had been guzzling since early in the morning more than apparent on his breath.

"Out," was all she had said in response, putting her hand on the handle again…but Lanh's hand had clamped down over her own, quickly pulling her arm forcefully away from the door and shoving her backwards into the house, the unkempt, dirty living room with open food containers and dirty dishes occupying virtually every seating area.

"No you're not!" he had screamed. "Not like that, you're not!" As added emphasis, Lanh screamed out two Vietnamese curse words. Kristen understood them; the words were not meant for her. They were meant for her mother, and for the form of her mother that Lanh saw in her.

_The bastard…_

She had grown up. She hated her father now. And while slightly better, her mother was no worse. She put up with it all, and not only that, she hadn't been there for her as the years had gone on.

_They both deserve to die…_

As soon as Kristen thought the words, hating herself just a little for allowing her private fantasies of revenge to build steam to the point of release in her own mind in the form of words that any responsible, moral person would not utter aloud, she heard another crash come from downstairs, followed by a scream of protest.

Kristen pieced together what was going on downstairs; a few moments ago, there had been shouting. The usual bouts of cursing, namecalling, and backbiting had been followed by return fire from the other direction.

_Rinse, lather, repeat…_

Until finally Lanh had been able to take no more, and lacking any more creative pet names or euphenisms for his wife, had begun to manifest his frustrations physically. The first crash had undoubtedly been Amanda being thrown from one side of the kitchen to the other, likely into one of the cabinets that held their glasses; the second crash had contained the unmistakable sound of glass breaking. Either Lanh or Amanda had used the weapon on the other, as Amanda had sometimes fought back in the past. And while it was sadistic, secretly, she hoped that it was Lanh who had used the glass. When her mother fought back, Lanh had a tendency to come upstairs…

"You bitch!" came the cry of anger from downstairs, and Kristen let out a breath of despair. Her breathing began to pick up rapidly, and she felt the usual sense of panic that the ensuing situation carried begin to wash over her.

Amanda had fought back. What came next would not be happy for her…

_Or for me…_

Over the past week, Kristen had, as usual, spent the vast majority of her free time away from school preparing herself for this moment. As someone who studied psychology, she called what she went through on these occasions detachment. Total detachment from the debasement that came from a physical altercation with her father. A feeling of total loss of one's own identity, and a means of coping with the extreme injustice of abuse.

Just a week ago, she had been returning from a foreign country, and on the plane ride home had experienced a terrifying episode in the airplane's bathroom. It had been an extremely embarrassing thing to endure; her friends had been very supportive of her, but the students of Chester Donovan who had been along – and weren't a part of her small circle of friends – hadn't been. She had endured catcalls and humiliation ever since, and a few cries of "psycho bitch" had been heard in the hallways all week.

While she was not certain, she had rationalized the actual event away in her own mind. She had been scared to return home, and in the confined space of the airplane, something in her mind had been triggered. Her lingering fear of home had festered while in Japan, far away from the dangers and trauma that home itself provided. But the second that New York City became closer, and the small house that looked just like all the other small houses on Nieboldt Street loomed closer, her mind had needed to tell her something.

_Danger, warning, stay far away…_

She had even convinced herself that the form of the woman in the mirror had been her mother in disguise. The frightening spectre even shared a sliver of her mother's own appearance; the long black hair, the sunken eyes destroyed and zombified by years of heroin use, and the pale, skinny frame. That the figure had attacked her had only confirmed her suspicions that she was on the right course; _just a few more months, and I'm outta here, outta all this…_

Throughout the week, she had even heard the same sound that the woman in the mirror had made – the bizarre repeated clicking. The sound had come from downstairs. The sound had not frightened her; it reminded her that downstairs was where the danger lurked, that she would have a weekend of punishment to endure, and once again, that it was coming to an end.

She had heard the sound every night around 1:00 A.M., unable to sleep and thinking of the moment that she climbed aboard one of the buses in the center of Manhattan, bound for New York University's dormitories, never to return to the house on Nieboldt. The clicking would continue for several minutes. It even appeared to be moving around downstairs, occasionally even venturing closer and closer to her up the stairs and toward her bedroom, but it would always retreat. The sound always disappeared after no more than ten minutes.

Then Kristen heard the sound that she feared the most – the door separating the upstairs area from the chaos of the main floor opening, followed by angry footsteps.

_Oh shit…_

She started looking around her room, searching for someplace to hide. Her room was immaculate; the bed was made, her CD's were in their cases and put away, the small television was dusted off. The entire room was a stark contrast to the remainder of the house.

She heard the clicking sound again – only now it was much closer. It was coming from her closet…

Just as her eyes met the closet door, which was opening slightly, her bedroom door burst open.

Her father stood there, zigzagging red lines crossing his eyes, an intense scowl plastered on his face.

"You," was all he said, wiping blood away from a thin cut taking up the right side of his face. Apparently, Amanda had connected with the glass. "All you ever do is sit up here. You're with her. You're against me."

Kristen did not say a word; she had already begun detaching herself.

At that moment, Kristen's father began advancing on her, but Kristen found her gaze still stuck on the closet door – it was opening even further now. Just a little at a time, almost as if something just wanted to watch what was about to happen.

_Watch but not intervene, just like my mother…_

Kristen braced herself. She knew what was coming. But in virulent opposition to all of the other times this had occurred since the first day Lanh Ng had struck her, this time brought a new feeling. A kind of bittersweet liberation, an almost criminal level of detachment from the pain.

But then Kristen saw something that frightened her even more than the sight of her father raising his hand and closing his fist – a pair of eyes from within the darker corners of her closet. Bright yellow eyes, on the ceiling, opened up from nothingness. The eyes were not looking at her.

They were looking directly at her father…

_What the hell…_

This was Kristen's last thought before she felt the resounding thud from the balled-up fist of her father's hand against her left cheek, and the thundering, intense pain that followed as she doubled over on to the floor.


	8. Carly: Rage

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or any characters contained within the films. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

Carly

**Rage**

"Why did you want to come up here, anyway?" Evan said.

_How cute,_ Carly thought, _he's scared._ She had noticed that he was clenching on to her much tighter than he normally did as soon as they entered the house. And much like close physical contact with Evan Daniels always did, it excited her.

"Because," Carly answered, leaning backward into Evan and planting a kiss on his lips. "This is where somebody literally died for the love of someone else. That's exciting."

Carly turned her head forward again, then began scanning the room. Directly at the top of the creepy stairwell was a door that had been slightly ajar before they had even reached the landing, almost as if to entice intruders.

Of course, the room was empty now, save for the massive collection of dust that had gathered en masse in the room over the years of emptiness. Undoubtedly, this had been a bedroom at one point during its long existence; the size of the room was much smaller than other rooms in the house, and its typical square shape was very indicative of a Japanese bedroom.

Carly felt Evan's arm encircle her waist; she welcomed the gesture, grabbing both of his hands with her own, and felt Evan's hair against her cheek as he leaned down to kiss her.

"Still," he said, "why here?"

"Don't worry about it," she said, kissing him passionately once again. She broke away from him. "You don't really need to know, anyway."

As Evan succumbed to his more natural desires, Carly stifled a chuckle as she thought to the current situation.

_Here he is – big, burly Evan Daniels, and he's scared of a stupid haunted house._

Carly recognized that, compared to some of the other students at Chester Donovan, and especially compared to the other students who had spent the majority of time with her on this particular trip, she had it good. She hadn't had to study her ass off and write one of those overly glossy, cover-letter-esque letters and join the National Honor Society. She wasn't one of the star jocks among the Chester Donovan elite like that weird Derrick Martin kid. And she most assuredly wasn't an aspiring fashion model like Jen Young.

Nope, Carly thought to herself, I have a last name. I have free public transportation for the rest of my life, and even if I own a car, I'll likely never need to rely on it for any extended period.

_And my father is a very powerful man. If I hadn't been here, it would have meant somebody getting fired._

The thought occasionally embarrassed Carly, and when she had first heard that she would be in attendance on this trip, she had felt the smallest twinge of guilt, and even a little remorse that her spot had likely taken the spot of someone much more deserving than herself. But she had quickly shoved the emotions back down within that place in herself that she had become long accustomed to shoving those feelings of regret, merely because of an affluent situation that she was born into; after all, she was grateful. She was grateful that she didn't have to work as hard for people's approval as others, and she recognized that there was no need to be angry about any of it.

The last name, and her father, had been very good to her over the years, but it hadn't been until just a year ago that she felt that her life had finally found a meaning.

Evan Daniels wasn't Carly's first boyfriend; she had been a regular on the dating scene since the early days of junior high, and had lost her virginity early in her freshman year to one of the seniors on the track team. But she hadn't loved any of them; she believed that she loved Evan.

He was good-looking; the first thing that had struck Evan when she had first seen him was just how perfect his bone structure was, along with his muscular physique. But even after the initial awkwardness of the "getting to know you" phase of their relationship, which had begun during, of all things, a project in a math class had passed, she had found that Evan was occasionally much deeper than his normal jock exterior let on. And later on, after the initial infatuation and lust phase of their early relationship had subsided, she hadn't grown bored of Evan; she found herself wanting his company more than ever.

_But a little lust is good every now and then…_

She broke away from Evan's kiss once again, and shoved him away with the palms of her hands.

"Come on," Carly said, attempting to plant as much seduction in her voice as she could.

"What?" he said, with the patented Evan Daniels "confused" expression on his face.

"Let's do it."

"Right here?"

"Right here."

"Carly, there's people downstairs…"

"So what? They're all too busy trying to scare each other to care what we're doing in here. We won't be bothered."

"But Carly…"

"But nothing."

Carly advanced on Evan, directly in the middle of the room, but as she reached him, he surprisingly kept her at arm's length, reluctant to take her in his arms.

He was looking downward at the floor; an intense look of curiosity was on his face. He walked across the room, squatted down, and picked something up off the floor.

"What the hell…" he said, picking up a small object.

Carly walked toward him to see what he held.

It was a photograph. She looked at it as Evan held it in his hands, tilting it toward her to give her a better glance.

"That's it," he said. "This is them. That's _her._"

The picture showed a family of three – a husband, a wife, and a small boy. The man was wearing a nice shirt and trousers, while the woman wore a rather frumpy-looking sweater and long dress, her long black hair all that was visible in the photo. The woman's face was either cut or scratched out of the picture. Clearly, someone hadn't been happy with this family portrait.

"That's her," Evan repeated. "It's gotta be."

"That's bull, Evan," she said, feeling her impatience well up within her. _Why did this stupid picture have to show up here?_ "The family that Tim spoke about, if they even existed, they lived here a long time ago. Like nobody cleaned this house from then until now?"

"I don't know. Look at her face…"

"I can see that it's ripped out, Evan. That doesn't prove anything. Some homeless people were probably just camped out here for a night and dropped it or something."

"You gotta admit that it's a hell of a coincidence."

"Yeah, a bad one. It's distracting you from me."

Carly grabbed Evan's face with her hands, forcibly turning it toward her as she kissed him. Surprisingly, he did not drop the picture; he still held her at arm's length with the knuckles of his hands as he broke away from the gesture.

"Carly, this just doesn't feel right."

"What doesn't feel right?"

"This. This is the room where…where the lady's journal or whatever was found…"

"Please don't tell me you believe Tim's horseshit."

"I wouldn't call it horseshit, Carly. You heard how well he told the stupid story. He didn't just make it up. He read it somewhere."

"So he read it somewhere. He probably read it off the internet. And, as we all know, everybody on the internet tells the truth."

"He's showed me that website of his a couple times. It looks right."

"Right. A nerd website for other nerds, like him. And here you are talking about Tim Orlock when I'm here, right in front of you…"

Growing impatient, Carly tried a more direct approach, sliding the straps of her tank top down her shoulders, and slowly lowering the garment down her chest until her breasts were visible to Evan.

Initially, she got the reaction she wanted, as Evan looked downward, typically unable to control himself as most men were.

_And to think,_ Carly thought, _all they are is excess fat…_

Surprisingly, the reaction was short-lived. Evan, while his eyes still ventured downward, trained his gaze back on Carly's eyes, nervously looking around the room.

He still held the picture in his hands, the blank space where the woman's face had been looking angrily at her.

"Oh, uh, wow…"

"Why are you nervous?"

"What?"

"You're nervous. You're never nervous around me. And especially not when I'm naked."

"It's just…I don't know, Carly…"

"What is it, this room?" Carly said, rushing forward and kissing him again. For added emphasis, she grabbed Evan's hands, moving them against her breasts, feeling his fingertips graze her nipples as the picture finally released itself from Evan's hands, falling to the floor in a zigzag motion as the air beneath it collected and slowed its eventual descent.

"It's just a room, Evan," she said as she broke from the kiss, feeling the part of Evan now sidled up next to her beginning to awaken as well. "Bad stuff may have happened here, but it can't hurt you."

"I know, Carly," he said, reaching up with his arms and stroking her hair. "Somebody died in here. That's all. It just doesn't feel…you know…respectful, to do it in here…"

"Screw it," Carly said, quickly reaching downward and jerking her tank top over her head, standing completely topless before Evan in one two-step movement.

To her pleasant surprise, Evan was now smiling. He stepped forward; he did not need to be forced anymore. He reached forward and caressed her breasts with his hands, his face now showing the sense of glib anticipation that she knew was the precursor to what would eventually follow.

"So Tim's story didn't scare you at all?" he said.

"Not at all," Carly answered, moaning a little in appreciation of Evan's wandering hands. "Screw the story. And screw this house. And screw the person that died here."

"I'm not sure that's something that you should…"

"Evan, what do you really care about? Some crotchety old woman who was probably incapable of having sex, or me, right here, in front of you?"

It didn't take long for Evan to answer as he launched forward yet again, crushing her mouth with his own, as Carly threw her arms around his head and neck in response.

A few minutes later, Carly rolled away from Evan, both of them spent, sweaty, and in the opening stages of catching their breath.

But as she turned away from Evan, searching for her clothes in the semi-darkness of the room, the first thing she saw was the picture, lying on the ground inches away from her.

The woman in the picture was completely gone. She had vanished – the man's arm clasped nothing, and the boy looked very out of place centered within the frame of the photograph with no bookend on the right side of the picture. Only the hole remained, a permanent imprint of the entity that once had been, and had been encapsulated for all of time on the happy, innocent image recorded long ago.


	9. Carly: Fury

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or any characters from the films. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome (so, is anybody reading this thing?).

**Fury**

"You have to come out sometime," Kristen said. "We want to see you. Everybody wants to see you. I know it's hard, and I know you hurt – I get it. We all hurt. But we can help you."

Carly could only look upwards, the image of Kristen standing above her blotted through the prism of her tear-soaked eyes.

Two funerals. Two in one week. And two people that she knew – and one of them that she cared about more than anything.

"You don't get it, Carly," she said, holding her blanket over her head, the darkness of her bedroom permeating the somber mood.

She wiped away her tears and finally saw Kristen for what she was. For someone who had lost two close friends in just under a week, she seemed remarkably upbeat. As usual, she wore one of her modest outfits – blue jeans and a white t-shirt with an American flag on it.

_She doesn't know shit,_ Carly thought. _She doesn't know how I feel._

"What don't I get?" she answered, stepping forward, letting what little light crept in through Carly's window illuminate her face. The sight caught Carly off guard, as it had been the first she had seen Kristen in almost two weeks, other than the funerals. Running the length of the left side of her face, like a proverbial badge of courage, was another big, nasty bruise, no doubt brought on by Kristen's asshole father. Carly had never found the courage to ask Kristen about the situation head-on, but she had heard enough in passing that she had a good idea.

Apparently, he's getting in every last lick that he can before she's off to school.

Still, Carly's anger did not waver.

_She hasn't seen the things I've seen. Not since they died…_

"We're all next," she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Every single one of us is going to die."

"Carly, just because Evan's dead doesn't mean we all are. Look, I lost Jen. She was…" Carly detected emotions welling up within Kristen, but very unlike herself, she quickly repressed them. "She was the best friend I ever had. I don't know if I'll find somebody else like her. She did so much for me. But, she's gone. The best thing I can do is just try to keep everybody else sane in all this craziness."

"You haven't had any dreams?"

"Of course I've had dreams. I've dreamt about them a lot."

"Not the kinds of dreams I've had, then. If you did, you would have said so just now."

"What kind of dreams have you had?"

"You don't want to know."

Kristen sat down on the chair at Carly's computer desk to speak to Carly at eye level. "But I do want to know. In your dreams, do we all die?"

Carly did not know how to answer. The dream was as vivid in her mind as it had been since she had first woken up four days ago after crying herself to sleep. The day of Evan's funeral. And a day later, Jen's funeral.

They had both died last Saturday. She had read the police reports a hundred times. She had committed them to memory. In both cases, the magnificent boys in blue could find absolutely nothing.

Evan had been found in the attic of his home. There was no blood at the scene. Evan had not been a drug user – she had been questioned about a possible overdose, and while they would still have to wait for toxicology, she was a hundred percent certain that they would NOT find any cocaine, heroin or meth in his system.

Miles away, in the center of New York City, Jen Young had been found dead a mere hours later in the labyrinthine subway systems of the city after falling asleep on one of the late-night subway cars.

_Who would've thought,_ Carly thought to herself as the events of the past week washed over her, looking at Kristen's knowing, ever-present look of compassion in the dark room, _those very same subway systems that made my father rich is the same thing that killed Jen Young_. Her movie posters were completely covered in darkness. Her computer was not turned on.

_Just me, my bed, and my blanket, and the same pajamas that I've been wearing for three days now. And the black garbage bags on my window that I put up yesterday._

On paper, there were tons that connected the two deaths. First, the victims not only knew each other, but were close associates, and in the same group of friends. And most importantly, both victims were found in the same state, albeit under very different circumstances.

Both funerals had been closed-casket. The funeral directors had refused to answer any questions about why this had been, but Carly knew. She knew why nobody was allowed to see the state of the bodies, even though there had been no murder weapon and no blatant horror movie-esque gore at the sight of the crimes. She knew the reason why the police were so baffled that two well-to-do youngsters of Chester Donovan High School could be found in _this_ state.

She had seen it in a dream, every time she had fallen asleep since Evan's funeral. It began with her all alone in church, crying her eyes out, looking at Evan's casket. At first, the dream was sad – there was even somber organ music playing in this dream. But as it wore on, the organ music became less somber, and took on a terrifying melody. She grew restless in the dream, ceased crying, and began looking around the empty church. Eventually, she would always turn her attention back up to the front.

And near the casket would stand two figures – one woman, her body horribly disfigured, her face and white dress bloodied, and this strange clacking sound coming from her mouth. The other was a small boy – sometimes he sat atop the casket, and sometimes he stood next to it. His mouth was always open extremely wide. Much like his monstrous companion, the small boy made a strange sound – the unmistakable meowing of a cat.

Then the casket would fall over, and she would see the state that Evan had died in, and most definitely the state that Jen Young had died in as well. A look of primal terror crossed his face, his head permanently stuck in a very unnatural position, cocked to one side. His eyes were wide open. The meaning of the dream was obvious to her – Evan had seen these two people, and they had scared him to death.

"No," she said, answering Kristen's question. "We don't all die."

"Then what happens?"

"I see…these two people…"

"Can you tell me about these people?"

"I don't want to talk about them."

"It might help to talk about them."

"I don't want to. Just drop it. It doesn't even matter, anyway. They're coming for us."

"Who, Carly? Who is coming for us?"

"I see them," she said, wanting desperately to tell somebody about the situation she had lived with for the last three days. "I see them every day. They're hungry. They're right outside my window."

"That's why these?" Kristen said, getting up and touching the black garbage bags covering her portal to the outside world.

"Don't touch it!" Carly screamed. "They keep them out!"

"Who?"

"Evan and Jen. They're coming to get me."

"Carly, that's crazy."

"I woke up one night, and they were both looking at me through that window. I mean, it was them, but it _wasn't_. They were both pure white, like ghosts."

"I think what this is is just a manifestation of your sadness…"

"Kristen, spare me the psychobabble bullshit…"

"Call it whatever you want, but I think I'm right. You just need to come with me. Come with me and talk about it. Me and Tim, we've met up a lot since…all of this happened. We've accepted it. We're not over it, we might not ever be, but we've accepted it. They were just a couple freak deaths, maybe random murders. There were twenty people in Jen's subway car when she died, for Christ's sake!"

"_They_ came for her, too," Carly said, nervously looking around – but especially to her window. "They came for her when she fell asleep."

"Stop it, Carly. Nobody is coming to get us. Even Tim, he thinks there's nothing to it. And you know how much he liked Jen."

"Yeah, I do."

Kristen suddenly stood up, then walked halfway to the door of her bedroom. She turned around, crossing her arms for added emphasis.

"I'm giving you a choice, Carly. Come with me and meet up with me and Tim for lunch, or stay here and keep wallowing in these fantasies. If not, hey, I can come back tomorrow."

"I can't do that," Carly said. "They follow me. I don't want them to follow you."

"Alright, Carly. I tried. I'll see you tomorrow, alright?"

"I hope so."

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Her eyes had remained open since the moment Kristen had left the room. Her father and mother had also repeatedly walked into her room, attempting to talk to her, soothe her, tell her that she hurt now…but everyone would be okay eventually.

It would never be okay.

What had happened two days ago was an indelible image that was permanently imprinted in her brain. And just now, she could do nothing but stare at the window. But as seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to hours, her curiosity grew more intense. She started to doubt herself; she started thinking about some of the things that Kristen had said.

_Could it be possible? Could I have just dreamed the whole thing? Could it just be a manifestation of my sadness? Could the two figures in the dream just be scary figures I've gleamed from all those stupid Japanese horror movies that I used to watch?_

_Could I be crazy?_

As early afternoon turned to sunset turned to night, her curiosity got the better of her.

She had been changing channels on the TV for almost two hours now – it was exactly 9:14 P.M., the red lines on the alarm clock in her room glaring angrily at her.

She shut off the TV, then got up off her bed. She faced the window.

_Could I be crazy?_

Gathering up all of her courage, she took a step toward it. Then another, and another. Her heart picked up in intensity until it sounded like a war drum in her chest.

_Could I?_

She reached out and touched the window, the black plastic of the garbage bag standing between herself and the outside world.

_Could I?_

She felt her hand reach the edge of the plastic. She pulled it back just an inch.

For the first half-second, all she saw was the blackness of the night sky, and she felt a huge sigh of relief rise up within herself. But the feeling was short lived. Just as fast as her spirits had risen, she felt the unmistakable swirl of panic overtake her body.

An eyeball quickly came into frame in the tiny patch of open window where she had pulled the garbage bag away.

She could not scream. She tried; she felt the breath escaping her as she fell backwards, landing next to her bed.

The bag dangled; Carly could see more of the face now. It was, without a doubt, the face of Jen Young; while the skin itself was pale and utterly deathlike, the eye shadow was unmistakable.

_Even in death, she's a little vain…_

Then the eyeball disappeared. And just as quickly as it had vanished, a small rumbling began emanating from her closet door to the right of her bed, directly opposite from her television and computer.

She turned to the closet door, already expecting the inevitable. The door slowly opened. And just like that, they were there.

Evan and Jen. But while Jen looked angry and vengeful, and still wore her trademark party attire, Evan wore the last clothes she had ever seen him in, the polo shirt that she had picked out for him last Christmas. Very different from Jen's hostile appearance, Evan appeared deep, full of love, and even a little compassion.

The two figures walked slowly toward her, and strangely, Carly Smith was not scared. Instead, she merely looked upward, happy to see the face of her first love for what would surely be the last time.

Surely, because as Jen and Evan slowly advanced on her from the front, she could hear the same gurgling, crackling sound from her dream coming from the television screen behind her…

_She's coming for me after all…_


	10. Interlude: JuOn

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or any characters from the films that appear in this story. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

**Interlude: Ju-On**

"Do you know what the hell all of this is about?" Derrick said.

"I have no idea," she answered, reaching the door to Tim's apartment ahead of Derrick. "I have no idea what anything means anymore."

Derrick did not know how to respond to Kristen's statement. He had been a good friend of Evan's; the two of them had been football teammates now for several years. He had attended the wakes of both Carly Smith and Jen Young, but he had barely known them. It had been tough for himself, but what this girl had gone through had to be unbearable.

_Three? Three within two weeks? Jesus…_

All Derrick knew was what had been reported in the news. Three high school students, all attendees of Chester Donovan, had been found dead – one of them in a very public place. All had been found in the same state, and no official cause of death had ever been listed. There had been no heart failure, no hemorrhages, no drug use had been involved in any case.

_Somebody just took them…_

"I don't know why," Kristen said, a little hesitant to knock on the door, "but I'm a little scared to walk in there."

"Why's that?"

"Because I know him. He's got to know everything. You have no idea how many horror movie monologues I've had to endure over the years. I mean, he's my friend, and I love him to death. But I know him – I'm going to find out something today that's going to scare me."

"What do you have to be scared of?"

"Plenty," was all she said, looking deep into his eyes. Derrick had never noticed before, but Kristen Ng was a cute girl; not quite pretty, but definitely cute. Her brown eyes were very deep and soulful, her long black hair flowing and wispy, her shape lithe and full. In addition, there was the telltale sign of a large bruise on her face in the final stages of healing. _Apparently, the rumors about her old man are true._ Instantly, he could also tell that Kristen was deeper than most of the vapid souls who attended the post-Chester Donovan football victory parties; he had deduced that when she had greeted Tim's haunted house story with joke after joke.

"Well, I'll do it," Derrick responded, raising his hand and knocking on the door. A few moments later, it opened.

_Does he ever run out of horror movie shirts?_ Derrick thought. It seemed that Tim Orlock had a different screen-printed black horror movie poster shirt for every day of the week. Today, it was some film he had never heard of called _City of the Dead._

"Hi, Kristen," he said, as Derrick scoped out the inside of Tim's fourth floor apartment. They were deep in the middle of Manhattan, and Derrick had found out today that he actually lived relatively close to Tim. He hadn't taken a subway. He hadn't touched them since he had seen the news story about Jen Young. He had walked.

_Not too bad,_ Derrick thought to himself, looking at the elaborately furnished and decorated living room laid out in front of him. _A lot better than mine._

Instantly, Derrick felt like the odd man out. Kristen immediately stepped forward and hugged Tim. After all, the two of them had seen their friends vanish one by one recently. All they had left was each other.

"Hi, Tim," she said. "How are you holding up?"

"About as good as I can," he responded. Kristen stepped away from him, and Tim's eyes met Derrick's.

"Hi, Derrick," he said, his eyes oddly enlarged by his thick glasses. "I'm glad you could come."

Derrick could tell that Tim was sizing him up; he was almost a foot taller than Tim, and the contrast was stark. Tim's height, noticeable clothes and even more noticeable curly haircut did not mesh with Derrick's plain-jane white t-shirt and blue jeans, and hair shaved almost to the scalp.

"Hey, Tim," Derrick said, extending his hand for Tim to shake. He took it. "You have some answers for us?"

"I think I do."

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

How does one even have this much time to acquire all this stuff?

Tim had led them through the house. Obviously, Tim's parents made a decent amount of cash; the fourth-floor apartment overlooked Central Park.

But as soon as they had stepped into Tim's room at the rear of the apartment, it was like entering an entire new world. Kristen was right; Tim did not do anything half-assed. He had known that Tim was a horror-movie buff; in the school newspaper that most of Derrick's friends read voraciously, it was practically all the guy wrote about.

But this room? Borderline freaky. At least fifty movie posters dotted the walls, and not the cheapo 10" by 12" movie posters that can be had anywhere. These cost money. Authentic originals, as he had seen some in a few of the different foster homes he had lived in over the years. And the vast majority of these movies he had never even heard of. _City of the Dead_ be damned – these were some damn obscure posters.

_The Bird with the Crystal Plumage? Eyes Without a Face?_

_What the hell does this kid do?_

It also did not surprise Derrick that Tim's computer was the centerpiece of his room; a small television lay perched on top of a wooden bench, overlooking his bed, but the computer loomed over the rest of the room like a shrine.

Tim took his place in front of the computer. Keeping in standard with the rest of his room, the background on his computer screen was a collage of horror film characters, of whom Derrick actually recognized a few. He saw Freddy Krueger in the center, and the guy with all the pins in his face from those _Hellraiser_ movies somewhere up top.

Kristen (_at least she looks as out of place as I do,_ Derrick thought, looking at her plain red long-sleeve shirt), as per usual, wanted answers.

"So what is all this, Tim? What the hell's going on? Why are we dying?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Derrick said, genuinely surprised. "You think that someone's targeting us?"

"I had my doubts," she said. "I even had my doubts after Jen and Evan. But three of us? That's just too strong to be coincidence."

"But there hasn't been any murder weapon. No suspects, no evidence of any kind…"

"That's what makes it even freakier."

"I think I actually do know what's going on," Tim suddenly said, looking at his computer screen and clicking on his internet browser. "And I don't think you're going to like it."

"Whatever," Derrick said, growing a little impatient.

Tim ignored him. He quickly pulled up a page throwing head shots of three Japanese people – a man, a woman, and a small boy.

_He had the page bookmarked, _Derrick thought. _Wow._

"Who are they?" Kristen said.

"The people who lived in the house."

"The house?" Derrick asked. "What house?"

"It's _the_ house, Derrick," Tim said. "The house that…that I brought you guys to in Japan."

"These were the three people who were murdered?" Kristen said.

"Yup. Takeo, Kayako, and Toshio."

Derrick looked at the three faces a little more closely. While the mother and son looked normal, even in the innocent-looking headshot the father looked eerie, sinister, about two steps away from blowing a fuse. _No wonder the guy killed his entire freaking family,_ Derrick thought. _He just _looks_ crazy._

"So what does this have to do with us?" Derrick said.

"Maybe everything," Tim said, his voice cracking a little. "After…after Carly died, I did a lot of digging. I didn't like what I found."

"What did you find?" Kristen said.

"It's people who go into that house. Ever since the murders. It started with Takeo – he was found in the middle of the street, dead but not murdered, but in the exact same state that Evan, Jen, and Carly were in. No official cause of death. But it's gotten worse."

Derrick watched as Tim, with terrifying speed, pulled up another bookmarked page. It was a Japanese web page – the writing was the unmistakable symbolic scrawl, and the page itself looked like a newspaper scan. In the middle of the page was a picture of a middle-aged man, thick black hair, somber expression on his face.

"This is Kobayashi," Tim said. "Toshio's schoolteacher. The one that Kayako fell in love with, and the reason that Takeo killed her. About a week after the murders, he was found dead in their house."

"In the house that WE were in?" Kristen said. "What the hell was he doing there?"

"I don't know. But he's dead." Tim pulled up another Japanese newspaper page. Another story, another picture. This time three young Japanese schoolgirls, fresh faces and pretty eyes.

"The next bunch that lived in the house. One of them was found inside the house, up in the attic. One of them was even found at school, and her _jaw_ was ripped off. The mother of the house also turned up dead."

Tim brought up another page. Same story, same type of somber-looking photo. This time, it was a man and woman together – clearly a husband and wife.

"The next people that lived there," he said. "Found dead in the room where Toshio supposedly died. The man – Tatsuya - his sister was found in her home the day after she visited her brother for dinner."

Another page, another photo. An elderly woman.

"This is where the story really gets strange," Tim said. "Because there was a witness. A young social worker, Rika Nishina, was sent to the house to check on Tatsuya's mother, who lived with them. And she says that she saw this black cloud envelop the woman. The cloud even had eyes that burned right into hers, and she said it was making this strange clicking sound."

With those words, Derrick felt his heart skip a beat. He looked over at Kristen; her eyes were glazed over. It was unmistakable.

_She's heard it, too._

_The clicking…_

Leaving them no time to breathe, Tim brought up another page. A middle-aged man, slightly balding.

"Officer Toyama," Tim said. "The man who investigated the original Saeki murders. Police found him dead in the house, in the same state as all the others. They also found a big jug of gasoline near his body."

"He was trying to burn it down," Kristen said.

"They think so," Tim responded. Tim brought up another page – three attractive young girls. "Toyama's daughter and friends," Tim said. "They told some of their friends at school that they were going into the house – now long unoccupied – on a dare. Within a week, all three of them were gone."

"So what does all of this mean?" Derrick said. _The clicking._ He couldn't wrap his mind around it. _I'm panicking. I hate this. I don't panic. _"All of these dead people. What does it all mean?"

"I've done a lot of research on Japanese ghosts," Tim said, trying very hard to sound calm, his voice occasionally cracking. "The Japanese belief in ghosts is very different from the American belief. They classify ghosts into several different types, but from the way all of this has gone down, and the way it has branched out in such an aggressive fashion, it looks like when Takeo killed his wife and son, a ju-on was born."

"A Ju-on?" Kristen said. "What is that?"

"It means something like curse," he said, turning around in the seat to face the two people. "And it's definitely not a curse that you want to come into. A ju-on occurs when someone dies while feeling a very powerful emotion, most often rage. This rage takes place in the sites where the person, or people, were alive. But that's not the scariest thing."

"What's that?" Derrick asked.

"It's all my fault…" Tim said, looking downward.

_Jesus Christ, he's crying,_ Derrick thought. _This can't be good._

Kristen bent over, taking Tim's face in her hands.

"Calm down, Tim," she said. "It's okay. What is it?"

"All my fault," he said, looking up. "I had to drag you guys into the stupid house…"

Showing a little more reserve than Derrick anticipated, Tim wiped his tears away and gathered himself. "You're going to hate me in a few moments."

"Tim," Derrick said, not in a menacing way, but a very sincere way. "Whatever it is, you didn't know. So what is it?"

"A ju-on is powerful," he said, standing up to talk to Derrick and Kristen. "Most ghosts are bound to one place. But…once it sees you, it never lets go. It follows you."

"Jesus Christ," Derrick said.

"The clicking," Tim said. "Have you all heard it?"

"Yeah," Derrick said. "I've heard it. In the middle of the night. Every once in a while it comes from right outside my door. It moves up to it, then moves away."

"It's her," Tim said. "It's Kayako."

"Of course," Kristen said. "Her throat was cut. She's choking on her own blood."

"That seems to make sense," Tim said. "And now she's coming for us."

"So how do we stop it?" Derrick said.

"You can't stop it," Tim said. "It sees you, it kills you, and it's never satisfied."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence then, as the three people looked at each other, feeling totally helpless with the situation.

"Have you heard it, Kristen?" Derrick asked.

"Yes. From my closet. It seems to be getting louder."

"And you've heard it, Tim?"

He did not say anything. He merely shook his head.

"So all of us have it," Derrick said.

"Like I said," Tim responded, looking Derrick in the eyes. "It's all my fault. I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault," Derrick said.

"Why not?"

"We all had the choice," Derrick said. "You didn't force us to come in. Every person makes their own choice, Tim, you can't blame yourself."

"I know, but…"

"Don't worry about it, Tim," Derrick said. "I'll take care of it. I'll think of something."

"Oh yeah?" Kristen suddenly said, a little anger in her voice. "What? This isn't football, Derrick. Some coach isn't going to bark an order in your ear telling this how to go away."

"Just trust me," Derrick said, taking a step forward and grabbing Kristen's shoulders. "There's got to be a way to get out of this. And when I find out, I'll let you know."


	11. Tim: Rage

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or any characters from the films. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

Tim

**Rage**

Tim looked over to the table directly in the center of the lunch room. Not surprisingly, there were a few errant glances being thrown their direction. Some people were even laughing.

Tim Orlock did not care; this was a matter of life and death.

He looked across the table at Derrick; big, menacing Derrick Martin, offensive tackle on the football team, imposing frame. While no doubt Derrick would have no problem getting pretty much any of the number of attractive girls at the school to go out with him, he could never remember either seeing or hearing through the grapevine anything of the sort happening. Tim thought Derrick was kind of a strange case; while he definitely knew the right people, he didn't really seem all that interested in exploiting it.

_Lucky guy,_ Tim thought, _if I was in his position…_

_Jen…_

Cutting himself off, he answered Derrick's question.

"Yeah, there's something else going on right now."

"How long ago were they there?"

"Just a little bit before we were. Some Japanese television show that does horror specials. This one was on haunted houses."

"Jesus. How many people went inside?"

"I don't know. However many they needed to accomplish what they needed to do. Camera people, makeup people, costume people, the hosts, the actress…"

"What actress?"

"You don't know her. Her name is Kyoko Harase. She's been in tons of Japanese horror movies. Known as the 'Queen' of Japanese horror, kind of like Jamie Lee Curtis is the queen of the slashers here."

"Who's Jamie Lee Curtis?"

Despite the situation, Tim had to laugh.

_God, I am such a loser…_

"You ever see _True Lies?_"

"No, man. I'm not really into movies."

"Well, she's been in a ton of movies. Back in the day, she used to be in a lot of horror movies. Started out with the original _Halloween…_"

"I've seen that movie."

"You have?"

"A long time ago. I was six or seven at the time. In one of my foster homes."

"They let you watch that?"

"It didn't scare me. I knew it was all fake."

"Well, at any rate, she was in a lot of other scary flicks after that. _Terror Train, Prom Night,_ and a couple others."

"Let me tell you something, man. I've heard you talk down on yourself different times for liking these movies, but don't do that. It's awesome."

"What makes you say that?"

"If you didn't like these movies, we would've never known what the hell was after us…"

"If I didn't watch those movies, I likely never would've dragged all of you guys along into that stupid house in the first place."

"You can't look at it that way. Knowledge is power, bro. The more you have, the more dangerous you can be."

"So what you're saying is I'm dangerous?"

"Possibly."

"Against a type of ancient curse that we have no idea how to stop."

"You still don't have any idea?"

"I've done a little research on the web…"

Just then, a loud clanging noise startled Tim – he jumped in his seat, turning to his right.

The telltale sign of girls laughing was all he needed to hear. Someone had dropped a lunch tray.

"Jesus," Derrick said. _At least I'm not the only one who jumped,_ Tim thought, as he noticed Derrick shifting his weight in his own seat. "Scared the crap out of me."

Tim looked one more time at Derrick, wearing his letterman's jacket, still getting a few errant glances from some of the girls in the lunch room even though they were seated at the least visible place in the entire room – way in the back corner near the windows overlooking the school's front entrance. As usual, Derrick's group of athlete friends occupied the two tables directly in the middle of the room. _Bow down to the kings,_ Tim thought.

"Derrick," Tim said, moving his glasses backward with one of his fingers. "Have you been hearing it?"

"Actually, no," he said. "I haven't been hearing it. I've been doing what you've said. I've been trying to keep company as much as possible."

"You know that one day that might not work."

"I figured as much."

"Jen…she died with a lot of people around."

"So what? You said that most of these things happen when there aren't any people around. What about this other bunch that just went in that house? What's going on with them?"

"So far, there's been two deaths."

"How did they happen?"

"It was two of the crew members. They were found in the woman's apartment. The official cause of death was suicide for both. Hanging from the ceiling."

"They did it themselves?"

"The police seem to think so. But I don't."

"I don't, either."

"There was another incident, though. On the drive back from the set of the TV show, Kyoko Harase and her fiancé were in an accident. Car wreck."

"Anybody die?"

"No, although the fiancé was injured. Pretty badly."

"So it's happening to them, too." It was not a question. It was a statement.

"It certainly appears so."

"This website that you went too – what did it say to do? When you have this kind of curse attached to you? What did you call it? Ju-, ju-something?"

"Ju-on."

"Right. Ju-on."

"There's only one known way to stop it. And unless you know of a certified Japanese spirit talker, it's not happening. There are people in Japan who can talk to the dead. If someone is possessed by a spirit, they seek out this person. Supposedly, they also have the power to perform a kind of exorcism that can end a ju-on."

"And you don't know any of these spirit talkers?"

"No. Do you?"

"I can't say that I do."

"Then I say we're screwed."

"You can't say that."

"Why not? All of the others are dead, Derrick! Your friends are dead, my friends are dead…Jen is dead. We're all going to die."

"Well, what we're doing seems to be working, doesn't it? Maybe if it sees that you have people in your life, that you're NOT alone, it leaves you."

"That's not the way it works, Derrick. Just because we're minimizing the time when it can strike us alone doesn't mean it won't get to us. We all owe it a death. That's what it wants. It's _her,_ Derrick. It's Kayako. We all have to suffer the way she suffered."

"Everyone?"

As Derrick said the word, Tim felt more despondent than he had felt since all of this craziness had begun. From the beginning – from the time before they entered the house – Derrick Martin had been the voice of reason and calm in this whole situation. But right now, Derrick looked exactly as he himself felt – helpless.

"Everyone must suffer, Derrick. It doesn't discriminate, it doesn't care who we are. All it knows is that it saw us, and we're alive, and we haven't suffered yet. _Yet._"

"Alright, then. You have knowledge, and knowledge is power. What about your horror movies, man?"

"What about them?"

"There has to be something in them that tells us what to do."

"There's something you don't seem to understand, Derrick. They're just movies. They're stupid movies."

"Well, if this were a movie, what would happen?"

"Depends who was directing it."

"OK – if this were a _typical _horror movie, what would happen?"

"Well, if this were a normal American horror film, we'd have what would appear to be a bright sunny ending, followed by a cheap jump scare at the end. Which means that one of us would figure out a way to beat the curse, and just when everything appears hunky-dory, Kayako would appear behind the last surviving one of us and kill them."

"Who would that be?"

"Who would who be?"

"The last surviving one. If this were a horror movie."

Tim did not have to think about this very long. "Kristen," he said. Surprisingly, Derrick smiled a little as Tim said it. "Definitely Kristen."

"Why her?"

"Because that's how these movies work. The dichotomy is always ultimate villain, final girl."

"Why a final girl?"

"Well, for starters, they can scream better. Who knows. It just kind of happened that way."

"Kristen – the stories about her dad. Are they true?"

Tim paused, debating whether or not to tell Derrick some of the things that Kristen had confided in him recently, since all of this had begun. Derrick seemed sincere enough.

"Yeah, they're true."

"How much of it?"

"Pretty much all of it. It happens almost every weekend."

"Jesus Christ. I thought I had it bad. Why does he do it?"

"Because he's a dipshit," Tim said. "There's really no other reason than that. His wife makes him upset, he drinks, he takes it out on her."

"That is bullshit."

"You're telling me."

"You're right. If it gets down to just one of us, it's going to be her. And she has to beat it."

"Why?"

"You said it yourself. If this were a movie, someone like her would have the power to beat it."

"I didn't say that. I said that she'd be the last girl, and then there would be a cheap jump scare."

"What if there doesn't have to be?"

"Then there isn't, Derrick, I don't know what you want me to say."

"I'm starting to get an idea. I don't really have the beginning, middle, or final stages of it mapped out yet – but it's something. When I can tell you, I'll let you know."

"Until then, what do I do?"

"Same thing you've been doing. Keep company and keep the faith, bro."

Derrick got up, and surprisingly, held his fist forward in the familiar male brotherhood gesture. Tim reached forward and pounded the fist.

"One way or another, this is going to end, Tim. I guarantee it."


	12. Tim: Fury

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or any characters from the films contained in this story. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

**Fury**

Tim flipped open his cell phone. As sad as he realized it was, he had the entire morbid story mapped out on his phone's calendar.

March 12th – the day that he and five friends/acquaintances had entered the house.

March 19th – Evan Daniels and Jen Young

March 26th – Carly Smith

Today was April 2nd. Exactly one week to the day of the last murder. The fact was not lost on Tim, and he had made sure to have plenty on his table for this day.

He had met Kristen for lunch. She still hadn't been hearing any noises in her house – not since the night that her father had last hit her. He had been away last weekend; visiting one of his brothers in Albany.

Tim was very grateful that the disturbances seemed to have stopped; they had first just a couple days after they had first arrived back in the States. While Kristen and Derrick had both told him that they only heard the clicking sounds at night, Tim heard them at all hours of the day.

At first, he thought he had been going insane. He had heard it for the first time in the middle of science class; it seemed to be coming from one of the sinks in the back of the room where they washed the chemical tubes. Somewhere way down in the sewers – this eerie, unmistakable, low croaking sound. He had looked around the first time he heard it, and even asked the attractive girl who sat next to him if she heard the same thing. As per usual, the question had been greeted with a "loser" before she turned away, a look of derision on her face.

It had not stopped. He seemed to hear the croaking every hour, on the hour, from the middle of the day until he passed out at night from exhaustion. The sounds terrified him. They terrified him even more because he did not know what they were. And they terrified him because no matter how many people surrounded him at the moment, nobody else heard the noises but him.

Then Evan and Jen had died, and the noises had picked up in intensity and frequency. He heard them constantly, sometimes as much as four times an hour. Sometimes they seemed to be getting closer, but they would always retreat. Sometimes he hallucinated that it was Jen herself attempting to warn him of something. But as usual, Tim had convinced himself that it was all a pipe dream.

But then he had grown curious – he had been consumed by the need to know just what had been going on. His friends dying and the noises had to be inextricably linked somehow. He had found out – and just as soon as he had acquired the knowledge of just what was killing them, and likely what was causing the strange noises that only he seemed to hear, they had stopped. He had not heard a single unexplainable sound in over a week. And as Derrick Martin had told him to do, he had been keeping constant company.

During his lunch with Kristen at one of the local Italian places – the tight, packed, crowded streets of Manhattan the obvious selection for obvious reasons – he had noticed something else. The attraction that Derrick obviously had for Kristen seemed to be mutual; every time that he mentioned Derrick's name, Kristen would make the gesture that he himself knew all too well whenever people mentioned Jen's name around him. Nervously looking around, averting the subject, not wanting to expose your innermost longings to anyone but the person that you _really_ wanted to expose them to. Tim did not know what to make of it, other than the fact that if you're living with a proverbial gun to your head, it makes you think about some of the things you have missed in life.

From there, he had spent several hours at one of the larger shopping centers in the middle of Manhattan. He had visited Central Park for the first time in five years, thinking about how odd it is that people who actually live in the great big apple don't do any of the things that tourists come there to do. He had actually never visited the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building.

_Maybe if I'm alive next Saturday, that'll be the next thing…_

But now, he was somewhere where he was most comfortable – the crummy, single-screen theater in one of the seedier districts of the city. The Paragon Reel House. One of the havens of grindhouse cinema, specializing in old, ancient, cheesy horror flicks.

_Just the way I like it._

His movies had been a great comfort to him over the years; over the past week, they had perhaps been more important to him than ever. He had barely slept all week; at most, maybe two hours. The sounds had gone away, but if they came back, he wanted to know; he didn't want to sleep through it. He had burned through about half of his movie collection in that time, sitting on his bed late at night, the subtitles on and the volume low so he could detect if Kayako – or whatever other form the ju-on would take – was approaching.

He had never seen the movie that the Reel House was showing this week; it was called _Kill Baby Kill, _and it was directed by a man named Mario Bava whose name he had heard in passing. The poster alone – featuring a freaky-looking doll and an eerie looking village in the foreground – had been more than enough to sell Tim on the idea that this was the ideal way to pass his Saturday night in the company of others.

_Four? Only four?_

Tim looked around as he entered the theater. The turnout was a little low this week. He had been hoping for a lot of people; the feeling of having a lot of people around was comforting in this time.

Tim took a seat in the middle of the theater; there was one young couple behind him, and one sitting way up in the second row. If something happened, he wanted some buffer space between himself and whatever it was that was coming after him.

The movie began, and Tim found himself entranced as well as gut-wrenchingly terrified. The movie told the story of an entire village that lived in fear of, go figure, a curse – a curse involving the freaky ghost of a little girl who had died in the village. Every person that it saw died.

The movie made Tim uncomfortable; while the movie was scary enough in and of itself, the addition of his own real-life situation, in addition to misgivings about his own sanity (after all, he hadn't heard the noises in over a week, and there had still been no proof that the three friends' deaths were connected), caught him off guard.

_I go to horror movies for comfort, not to feel like THIS…_

Presently, Tim was watching a scene in which one of the attractive younger women in the village, who had attempted to eliminate the curse by having one of the local good witches purge it from her, was having a nightmare.

She woke up, looked out of her window, and saw the freaky little girl ghost staring in at her.

Tim turned away; he could see something similar happening to himself. One night, he would wake up, look to his door, and there would be the same woman that he had seen in the picture, likely making that same awful sound that he had heard nonstop since coming back from Japan.

Or worse – there would stand Jen, with a vengeful look on her face, perhaps blaming him for her death…

And then he heard it.

_Ccccccc rrrrrr ooooo aaaaa kkkkkk…_

_I'm not crazy after all…_

Tim did not want to look up at the screen; he had averted his eyes, something he had not done with a horror film since his days when his age wasn't even a double digit number. But he knew he had to look.

Slowly, he turned his head – and in the place of the little girl's face in the mirror was the woman from the picture. It could be no one else, although she looked quite a bit different. Her skin was now white, puffy, and had the unmistakable look of death; her eyes burned directly into his.

Immediately, Tim sprung up in his seat.

"Do you guys see that?" he yelled – but then he looked around.

Both young couples were gone. In addition, the theater was now considerably darker than it had been – it was virtually pitch-black, the only lighting coming from the light on the screen.

The movie itself had stopped – it seemed to be a still frame now. Just the door, the small window, and the face of Kayako Saeki staring back at him.

The croaking sound had continued throughout this time, and now it was getting louder…

_CCCCCC RRRRRR OOOOO AAAAA KKKKKK…_

Then an arm emerged from the window, and then another. Kayako's black hair made its first appearance, and then her shoulders appeared. She was crawling out of the window.

Tim tried to scream; no sound emanated from his mouth.

_Holy shit…_

Kayako's arm somehow passed through the invisible wall of the theater's screen, emerging through the screen, not ripping it – just _materializing._

The croaking sound had become louder.

For the first time, he noticed her clothes and throat, and the many loud, angry blood stains covering her body.

_It's true_, he thought. _She's choking on her own blood. That's why the sound…_

Finally, Tim gathered his will enough to make action. He sprinted toward the right side of his row of theater seats, then quickly exited the viewing room, running toward the lobby area.

As he burst out the door, he could still hear Kayako's croaking. It was gaining on him, and sounded like it was coming from the aisles.

_Well, I'm not going to find out…_

The door shut behind him, and Tim looked behind the lobby, the fresh scent of popcorn still in the air…

There was no clerk or manager, no other human being of any kind. And while the overhead lights in the lobby were still turned on, casting light on the countless B-movie and grindhouse posters surrounding him, the room seemed considerably darker, just like the viewing room itself.

_This is how she does it,_ Tim thought. _Somehow, she moves you – she moves you to a different _dimension…

Tim closed his eyes, trying to use the trick he had learned when he had read that book on lucid dreaming; close your eyes, and you snap out of it, you snap back to reality…

_Snap back, dammit…_

He opened his eyes. It hadn't worked.

He heard the door of the theater open, and he turned his head back…

Kayako was crawling through the door, her head and back contorting with each body movement. There was no conceivable way that any human being could move in this manner. It was disjointed, stilted, and utterly unnerving to watch. Something about it, combined with the noise emanating from her throat, the blood caked to her mouth and throat, terrified him to his very soul.

_Scared to death…_

Tim ran the remaining twenty feet to the front entrance of the theater.

Not surprisingly, it wouldn't budge. He did not even bother trying to struggle with it.

_How many horror movies has this cliché appeared in?_ He thought to himself.

He heard the croaking noise behind him intensify, growing closer with each beat of his pounding heart.

_It figures that I would be the first one to go out of the last three,_ Tim thought to himself. _Derrick and Kristen are like the heroic final couple. Me? I'm just the disposable nerd character. I don't bring anything to the drama of the last reel._

_Just like a horror movie._

Tim turned around – terrified, but ready to accept his fate.

He squatted down to face his maker at eye level, his back sinking down the theater door. He took one final gaze around at all of the movie posters.

_If I'm going to go, at least it's here…_

He finally slunk down all the way. Kayako's face was inches from his own. She continued to crawl toward him, however, her eyes and face burning with hate, her body moving with the strange herky-jerky undead contortions.

"Everyone must suffer, right, Kayako?"

They were the last words he ever spoke.

_CCCCCCCC RRRRRRR OOOOO AAAAAA KKKKK…_


	13. Kayako: Rage

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or any characters from the films. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

Kayako

**Rage**

"By the end of this week," Kristen said, "we're both going to be dead."

Surprisingly, Derrick Martin had been trying to lift her spirits throughout this little meeting that he had surprised her with today. Both of them had been off school since last Saturday; Tim's funeral had been yesterday. Just another in a long series of tragedies. But while Jen had been a closer friend, this one had hit Kristen the hardest. She had grown much closer to Tim over the course of the last few weeks than she ever had with Jen; it was apparent to Kristen, only now, that when bound by life and death itself, you find out who your best friends are.

Tim had been a best friend, and just like the others, now he was gone forever.

The funeral had been sparsely attended. Rumors had begun to circulate at school; rumors that Kristen knew were far from false. They had begun to say that she and her small group of friends was cursed; that they had done something to piss off the all-knowing, all-seeing Gods of the universe somehow while on their trip to Japan, and thus, had been marked for death by those very same Gods of the universe.

_How right they are,_ Kristen thought to herself.

Derrick had also attended Tim's funeral; he had been sitting in the very back row. Every time Kristen looked back to him, he had been looking directly back at her. He hadn't cried. He didn't even look emotional in the slightest. He was there for _her,_ and that was part of the reason she had accepted today's request for lunch, despite the fact that she had known what the subject of the conversation would be. Matters of life and death.

He had surprised her; he hadn't even mentioned the cloud that hung over them like a funeral pall in the early stages of their meeting at the Italian restaurant in the heart of Manhattan, overlooking one of the busy, bustling city streets. He had foregone his usual letter jacket in favor of a work shirt and blue jeans. He seemed to be saying to her that this was who he really was, rather than the façade he put on for the rest of the football junkies at school. Instead, he made her laugh; it felt good to laugh, and more importantly, it felt good to laugh with Derrick.

But just a minute ago, Derrick had not-so-smoothly transitioned to the matter at hand. He had begun hearing the clicking again – it was right outside his door, every night, and seemed to be picking up in intensity. He was certain that one night it would be directly on top of him, and that it would be Kayako, ready to claim him just like she had claimed Evan, Carly, Jen, Tim, and all the others in Japan. He had asked her if she had heard the noises. Shockingly, he was pleased by her answer – yes, she had, but only when she heard her parents fighting downstairs, at which point she had made the deduction that none of it mattered.

"You can't say that," he responded, looking back at her with his deep, soulful eyes. "You can't believe that."

"Why not? Tim's gone. Jen's gone. They're all gone. And soon we're going to be right there beside them. We're just going to be another couple of funerals."

"You can't believe that, Kristen, because it's not going to happen," he said, pushing away the plate where his pasta had been sitting.

Kristen looked out over the table. They were seated on the second floor of the restaurant in one of the outside tables, the cool breeze of the Manhattan wind, along with the warm air from all of the exhaust pipes below making a strange, disquieting mixture that Kristen found unnerving. _I wonder if this is what Kayako will feel like…_

"It's not," he repeated for emphasis, reaching out and grabbing her chin, turning her face toward his.

"How can you know that, Derrick? How can you be so sure? How do you know we can stop it? Nobody else has! This thing is forever. It's never going to be over, and it's never going to be satisfied…"

"Kristen…"

"How many more, Derrick? How many more have to die because of the injustice that that woman suffered? A hundred? A thousand? More than that?"

"Kristen, you have to calm down…"

"I can't calm down, Derrick." As she said the words, she felt the opposite effect come over her. She felt Derrick's hands on her shoulders, and although she looked down, afraid to show him her tears, she could feel his gaze on her face. She was grateful for the fact that there were only three tables on the balcony – and they were the only occupants. "I don't know if I can."

"But you just did," Derrick said. _He seems to be able to read me…_ "You did, and that's why you're going to outlast it. I don't know if you can beat it, but you can survive this."

Kristen looked up. She had managed to suppress the tears that had been forming in the corners of her eyes, wanting to stay strong in front of Derrick. "What do you mean by that?"

"I just see…something, in the story that Tim told, and your own story, Kristen. You know, the rumors at school…"

"Oh, God, not you too…"

"It's alright, Kristen. Not those rumors. I mean, about your father…"

Kristen turned her face away from Derrick. It was really quite astounding – in the space of thirty minutes, she had run the gamut from hopelessness to full of laughter to sadness and back to hopelessness, all within the company of one Derrick Martin.

"I don't want to talk about my father," she said, still looking away from him.

"Tim said they were true, and I believed him. How often does it happen?"

"I don't want to talk."

"You have to. Your life may depend on it."

"How?" she said, turning her attention back to Derrick. "How will it help? Don't you know that I think about this every second of every day? It's not fair, Derrick!"

"I know it's not…"

"No, you can't. You can't know. It's not fair, because I spent my entire life coming up with a way to get away from him, and now I'll never know a life away from that hell. I'm going to die in that shitty house. Do you know what that feels like?"

"No, I don't. But I'm a foster kid, Kristen. I've been shuttled around to different houses my entire life. Most of them have been decent people, but I would give anything to be able to put faces on the names of the people who shit all over me. If I did, believe me, I'd have something to say to them. But I don't have that power. _You_ do."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I think there's a way for you to make all of this go away."

Kristen couldn't contain herself anymore. She stood up and began quickly walking back to the door leading to the inside of the restaurant. Derrick was quicker; he caught up to her before she reached the door, pinning her to the heavy brick wall, a thick, burly arm on either side of her. She turned around to face him.

She was crying.

"I just want it all to go away!"

"You can do it. If you trust me."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I'm going to be asking a lot of you. Do you mind?"

She shook her head, wiping away her tears with her long-sleeve shirt as she did so. She looked back up to Derrick. His face was inches from hers.

"How can you know, though, Derrick?"

He let his arms fall to his sides, wanting her to know that she was not his captive. He even took a step back.

"Because I did…some research. On one of those same websites that Tim used to go to."

"One of his nerd websites? I thought you hated those."

"Still do. But there's one universal characteristic in all of those ghost stories on there, and especially like the kind that we have right now. Kayako was human once. As such, she still can feel human emotions."

"So what?"

"So, there's a lot in yourself that she can connect with. One, you're Asian. Two, you look a little bit like her. And I don't think I have to tell you what number three is."

Kristen tried to wrap her head around the things that Derrick was saying. On paper, it sounded like absolute lunacy; the kind of horrid platitudes that one of the pop psychologists that she loathed so much would blather on about during daytime television. But on the other hand, this world, this new world that had become a part of her own like a tidal wave over the past several weeks, did not follow the standard set of rules and deviation that she had become accustomed to. It did not follow logic, or a pattern of behavior. It merely _was._ And as a factor, a very human factor, Derrick's theory made sense.

"The noises in your closet," he continued, taking a step toward her. "Are they getting louder?"

"Yes," she said. "They have been all week. They…they started again on Saturday night. It must have started again after Tim died."

"It's coming for both of us. But I get the feeling that it's almost right on me, now. The feeling you get when you hear it, do you feel like it's about to jump through your closet door at any minute?"

Strangely, Kristen knew the answer. "No, not yet," she said. "It feels like it has some…some kind of building up to do. Like it needs something first."

"Me, Kristen. It needs me."

"What?"

"It set an order. Somehow or another, it _sees_ you in an order, and then you die in that order. Almost like you're being put in line. And I'm next."

"Oh, God, Derrick—"

He walked forward more—_God, he's so close-_putting his hand underneath her chin and tilting her head upwards.

"You can make it all go away," he repeated, staring straight into her eyes. "You can, if you trust me."

Before she could think, she found herself leaning forward, feeling his lips on her own, not rejecting the gesture but reciprocating it.

In those moments, Kristen found everything else in her life going away – Kayako, her friends, and her father.


	14. Kayako: Fury

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or any characters contained within the films. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

**Fury**

"It's happening, Derrick."

"Right now?"

"Right now."

Kristen could barely keep her voice steady. She had been surprised she had been able to gather the strength necessary to dial Derrick's phone number and tell him.

And she still had no idea what, exactly, Derrick Martin had up his sleeve. She had first begun by needling him, then pleading, then flat-out begged to hear what Derrick planned to accomplish in those moments after she had kissed him, and he still would not budge. All he had told her was that it was better if she didn't know – and that all she had to do was trust him.

She did. It was the only thing she knew with any certainty. She trusted him.

That had been yesterday. She had not heard the clicking sound from her closet that night, and she had fallen asleep soundly for the first time in weeks, wondering if maybe all of this was just a dream, or some bizarre freak occurrence, or some _Star Trek-_style warp in the space time continuum…anything to put some semblance of rationality to the goings-on of the previous few weeks. She could think of nothing, and in a state of pure exhaustion, she had felt her eyelids grow too heavy for her weary head. She had fallen asleep shortly thereafter.

When she had woken up, her first thoughts had been of Derrick. She hated to admit it to herself, but the feelings were there; she had never felt this way about anyone before. The psychologist in her told her that the experiences with her father had left her distrustful toward men in general, but Derrick Martin, from the moment she had first made his acquaintance on the trip to Japan, had been very different from any man she had ever met. The complete antithesis of her father. Tender, loyal, honest.

Again, all he had told her was to trust him. And she did. It was really the only thing she believed in. His strength was the only thing keeping her sane.

"I'll be over there in a little bit."

"What?" Kristen said, standing up in her bedroom, casting a nervous glance back to her closet.

The clicking sound was getting louder – indeed, the only thing drowning it out were the two screaming voices coming from the floor below her.

As much as she feared the _thing_ in the closet, she feared what laid downstairs worse.

"I'm coming over there, Kristen."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you why. You just have to trust me."

"I do, Derrick."

"Good. No matter how loud it gets downstairs, no matter how much stuff goes down…you can't come down there, got it? You have to stay by where _she_ is, understand?"

"Tell me why, Derrick."

"I can't."

"Derrick, it's getting louder!"

"If I tell you, I'll scare you. Even more than you are right now."

"Believe me, that's not possible."

There was a long, agonizing pause on the phone. She could tell that Derrick badly wanted to tell her what was happening, and was wrestling with his innermost demons as to what exactly to do in the situation. After five seconds, Derrick spoke. His decision was made.

"Just stay where you are, Kristen. Don't go downstairs. Trust me."

There was an audible _click_ on the other end of the phone.

_Sometimes trust has its limits, _Kristen thought to herself. Still, her room offered comfort, just as it had for all the years she had been alone with her father. It was her sanctuary.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Derrick stood at the front door of Kristen's house. He had walked her home on purpose yesterday; he had needed to see where she lived. It was imperative to his current mission, although at the moment, he admitted to himself a great deal of apprehension. He had hoped for a few days to mentally prepare himself for what was about to occur. But just last night, the clicking sound outside his door had started to get louder…and louder, and louder, until he thought that the sound would drive him mad. His foster father did not hear the sound; it seemed to exist in a plane only in his own mind.

And just today, the phone call. But sometimes life isn't fair, is it, Derrick?

_God, she's up there right now,_ he thought, looking at the second floor window. From outside, the house looked utterly nondescript, almost exactly like the other suburban-style houses in the neighborhood. From a distance, it even looked eerily similar to the house.

_The_ house. The Saeki house.

Derrick did not allow himself the luxury of dwelling on the thought. Gathering up his courage. He knocked on the door.

There was a long, agonizing ten second wait. Then the doorknob turned. And then the front door opened – and before him stood the man who could only be Kristen's sack-of-shit father. His face looked to be caked with pure grease, his brow furrowed, a big, noticeable mustache the primary defining characteristic of his face. His white t-shirt had grease stains on it – _obviously, this guy is a factory worker_ – and his blue jeans had holes in the knees. Behind him, in the relative chaos of the family room, stood an older white woman.

_So this is Kristen's family. She deserves it…she deserves it all. After putting up with all this for all these years…_

Suddenly, the man standing before him spoke.

"Who the hell are you?" he said, with a rather high voice. _Figures,_ Derrick thought. _Guys who like to bully women usually have high voices. Overcompensation._

"Derrick Martin," he said.

"I've never seen you before."

"I know your daughter."

"What? What do you mean you know her?"

"I'm her new boyfriend, pally."

"Boyfriend? She never said anything about a boyfriend!" he said. His speech was slightly slurred, his breath smelled slightly of a few afternoon beers. Taking the offensive, Derrick muscled his way into the entrance of the house, planting his shoulder into the father's – and Kristen had told him that his name was Lanh – chest. He let out a small exhale of protest, stumbling back several steps as Derrick entered the house.

"Yeah, well, she can't really talk to you at all, can she?" he said. He cast another look to the pathetic sight on the floor that was Kristen's mother. Ever subservient, likely addled with drugs at this very moment. Her eyes were purple and puffy, obviously chemically altered in some way. And just like always, in a few moments, the proverbial shit would hit the fan, and she would do nothing.

_If only both of them could go…_

"She could never really count on you for anything, Lanh. She told me all about you. How many times has it been? How many times has it been when you've had nowhere to turn for your own self pity, so you have to turn to her? Does it make you feel better, Lanh? Does it make you feel better to hit her?"

The look of rage was apparent in his eyes, but it did not frighten Derrick. No doubt, he would be pitifully slow in what was to come. This would be an easy fight that Derrick Martin would relish.

"You should shut the hell up," he said, attempting to sound as much like Charles Bronson as he could. He took two steps toward Derrick, who looked around the living room one final time, looking for things in the terrain to use to his advantage. There was a couch to his left, planted in front of the television, and a huge stack of newspapers to his right in front of a kitchen counter. Not much in the way of weapons in the scenery.

_All the better…_

"Or else what? You'll do to me what you do to her? I don't think so. Unlike her, I'll fight back."

With that, Lanh threw his first haymaker, meant for Derrick's jaw. A pathetically slow right hand, slurred with his alcohol, and the aim was even a little off to boot.

Derrick easily dodged the punch, leaning out of its way, then launched one of his own. His own aim was not errant, connecting directly with Lanh's right cheek. Derrick felt the satisfying _thunk_ of his knuckles making contact with the man's face, seeing thin rivulets of blood forming on the bare skin of both his own knuckles and Lanh's face.

_God, that felt good…_

Even more, Lanh instantly fell over with the force of the blow. While he could hear Kristen's mother yammering in the background, he paid it no mind, immediately pouncing on the prone form of Lanh lying next to the kitchen counter. He mounted him, pinning his arms down with both of his knees. He was now completely at his mercy.

"How's it feel, Lanh?" he said. In response, Lanh merely spit up a wad of his own blood.

_That's supposed to make me feel pity?_

Derrick punched Lanh with his right hand, then his left. He swiped at Lanh's face with lunge after lunge, hitting him perhaps twenty times total, watching the wood floor below his face turn into a puddle of red liquid, his face eventually unrecognizable – but he left Lanh with a fragmente of both his consciousness and his sanity.

After one final left hand, he suddenly stopped, letting the moment savor, and then speaking.

"That was from Kristen," he said, standing up and freeing Lanh. "She wanted me to tell you that."

Finally, Lanh spoke up, coughing up blood on the floor as he did so.

"She…she told you to do that…"

"Yes, she did."

"That, little…"

"Yeah, blame her for it. That's what your types always do. Go up there and be a sack of shit again."

And with that, Derrick Martin turned around and exited the house.

_It's done,_ he thought. _It's going to happen, and soon, it will all be over for her._

_But am I ready?_

_________________________________________________________________________________________  
_

_The sound was getting louder…_

Over the past ten minutes, the croaking sound had intensified greatly. Presently, it was so loud that the door itself was rattling. But it had been hard to hear over the commotion downstairs.

She had heard a knocking on the door; she had heard a man enter, and she had heard her father talking to another man. She had known, of course, that this other man was Derrick – and after a brief conversation, she had heard the unmistakable sounds of a fight. And since it hadn't been accompanied by her father's usual taunts, she had been certain that Derrick had been winning.

The urge to go downstairs had been ungodly; she wanted to see it. She wanted to see Derrick take her father and wipe the floor with him, make him suffer, make him feel all the things she had felt over these years.

But he had told her not to. He had told her to trust him.

So she had remained, accompanied by the ever-present clicking sound, threatening to burst out of the closet at a moment's notice and rip her to pieces.

Then, she heard it. The sound that had haunted her throughout her entire life. The sound that scared her more than the thing in the closet. The sound of him, walking up the stairs. It was slower than usual; a plodding, a kind of defeated gait. But it was him. There was no doubt about it.

_Oh, God…what did Derrick do…_

Her door burst open – and there he stood, once again. His face was a bloody mess.

_Jesus Christ, Derrick did a number on him…_

But Kristen was nonetheless terrified – not only by what was sure to follow, but by the look in her father's eyes. It reminded her of when she had _seen_ the spectre in the mirror that night in the airplane, the face that she had come to associate with the unseen menace that had terrified her and her friends over the past several weeks. The look of hate. The look of absolute destruction.

"You," he said. "You had him do this!" he screamed, pointing upwards at his face with his right hand.

"No," was all she could say, shaking her head. While she was transfixed on the image of her father in the doorway, she found herself turning back to the closet – it was louder. The door was rattling louder than ever now…

And then Lanh began advancing on her.

He was upon her in less than three steps, and he immediately threw the first hit – an open-palmed slap that connected squarely in the face. Kristen felt the pain on both her face and body as she tumbled over onto the ground near her bed.

She looked up – he was looking down at her, the same look of utter, content hatred glazed on his face, still all-too-readable through the layers of blood caked to his face.

Then he knelt down beside her, and Kristen saw the figure behind Lanh.

Standing directly behind him was the boy. The same small boy she had seen on the airplane. Pure white skin, eyes wide open, shirtless. And the look on his face spoke of even more hatred than Lanh had been able to convey.

Then he opened his mouth.

An extremely loud "Meow" escaped from his vocal chords, and Lanh jumped upwards, turning around as he did so and falling over backwards in his shock.

_He can see him,_ Kristen thought, as he fell over on his back on Kristen's right side. He had completely forgotten about his daughter, his eyes focused only on the intruder to his home.

"Who…" was the only word that he was able to say, and then Kristen's closet door burst open…

While it had seemed that he hadn't been able to hear it before, now Lanh seemed to be all-too-aware of the sound that had haunted Kristen's waking and dreaming states. He looked toward the closet, sweat beads starting to form on his forehead – and then she came. From the blackness of the closet, almost materializing from the rows of clothes hanging from hangers, she came.

_It's Kayako,_ Kristen thought, seeing the beginning of her long black hair emanating from the closet. Then her arms. Then her shoulders. And finally her face, the mouth and neck caked with blood of her own, eerily similar to Lanh's present look.

Just then, Kristen's eyes darted back to her father.

_At this angle, he looks a little like _him._ Like Takeo._

Then it occurred to Kristen what Derrick's plan had been all along.

"Kayako was human once," he had told her yesterday, in that great time when all that had seemed to matter was him. "And as such, she feels human emotions…"

He had made sure that Kayako had seen Lanh commit the actions; most likely, Kayako had even seen it _beforehand._ This had only been the proverbial lighter fluid on the already raging inferno.

And Lanh did indeed see Kayako, who had slithered out of the closet.

_My God – how can she move like that?_ Kristen thought. She was no longer frightened; neither Toshio nor Kayako were even looking at her. Both were warmongers of hate, and they were headed directly for Lanh, as Toshio blocked the exit – and Kayako moved in for the kill…

Lanh screamed for one final time.

"I hate you!" Kristen screamed at Lanh. "I always did. Go to hell!"

But just as Kayako's face neared Lanh's, and he screamed one final bloodcurdling scream, Kayako turned her face to Kristen. Strangely, she was still not frightened. The look on Kayako's face was different this time, different from that night in the airplane. It was not full of hatred, but rather a sadness, a soulfulness, and a kind of understanding…

The image of Kayako's face and Lanh's terrified contortions were her final mental images as she blacked out into unconsciousness.


	15. Epilogue

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or any characters contained within the films. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

**Epilogue**

Four years had passed, and at this moment, nothing was further from Kristen Ng's mind than the events that had made her something of a morbid celebrity in New York City.

Six unexplained murders, and one more victim currently locked up in a mental institution in Albany. Her mother had also seen something that night; after Kristen had called the police, the authorities had found her huddled in the corner, unable to speak, her face contorting with fear, pointing toward the stairs leading to Kristen's room.

Someone – or something – had entered, and it had scared Kristen's mother to the point that she was no longer comprehendible.

Kristen had shed tears twice more in the days following the last night she ever spent in her childhood home; once at her father's funeral, although not for him, and once more for Derrick Martin. He had been right, after all. There had been an order to follow. After leaving her house, he had been found dead a short distance away, lying face down in an alley. Just like all the others, no official cause of death had been determined.

But something was different about Derrick's death. The other funerals had been closed-casket, but Derrick's face had been displayed for the world to see. As opposed to some horrific feature that the newspapers and police reports did not mention, Derrick's face shined in a resounding smile.

_He accepted it,_ she had thought at the time. _He accepted his fate. He accepted death for me…_

She had not only cried that day, but some part of Kristen Ng knew that she would never truly forget the sacrifice of Derrick Martin.

_And to think, he barely knew me…_

Presently, Kristen's mind was miles away. She was in the fourth year of her undergraduate studies, and next year, would be beginning the Master's in Psychology program at NYU. Two years after that, she would be going for the Doctorate – and just now she was in her home away from home. Peer counseling.

The subject in front of her had been a frequent visitor. Poor Melvin Barrak – sophomore, majoring in social studies. Very high-level nerd in high school, domineering mother, and had an extreme dissatisfaction with the college life as well as a very low aptitude for adapting to the new social situation. Somehow, he saw Kristen Ng as his only social outlet. But today was one of his bad days, rapidly escalating towards his worst day.

"You always say that," he caterwauled from the seat in front of her desk. Kristen looked around – the room was tiny, only about seven feet on each wall, barely enough for her small desk, a one-tiered filing cabinet, and the chair in front of her for her peers to sit in. There were no windows, and the door was shut behind Melvin. "You always say that I can change whatever I want, but it never happens."

"Sometimes, you have to stop saying that and actually believe it and enact some of that change," Kristen said, a little more harshness in her voice than she would have liked. It had been a recurring theme with Melvin throughout the past few months that he had been visiting her; nonetheless, it was beginning to grind her.

"But I do believe it," he said, leaning forward in his seat, his overtly loud tropical button-down shirt juxtaposing with his corduroy pants. He did not wear glasses; his hair appeared disheveled and greasy. "It's you that holds me back."

The words shocked Kristen. Over the past several months, she had grown accustomed to Melvin's abrasive ways. This had been the first time she had been genuinely scared of him.

_Maybe instead of the screw-up I think he is, this kid is actually dangerous…_

"You hold me back," he said, standing up. "I come to you for help every week, and nothing ever changes. You want to see me fail, don't you?"

_Alright, Kristen, time to go into calming mode…_

"Nobody wants to see you fail, Melvin, let alone me. I see you every week because I want to help you."

For reasons that Kristen would never understand, Melvin flew into a rage, throwing the stack of papers on Kristen's deck away to one side, then quickly walking around her desk before she could react, pinning her back against the corner of the room.

In those few seconds, Kristen thought of a scenario. There had to be an explanation for this behavior. Maybe Melvin had just broken up with the first girlfriend he had ever had, and had decided to take out the frustration on the first willing female listener he could find. Maybe the constant humiliations and degradations he had no doubt endured in high school had finally snuck up to his fragile psyche, causing him to burst at this institute of higher learning. Maybe he had just found out that he had flunked one of his introductory social sciences courses, and would need to take summer classes to keep caught up – and maybe his domineering mother had caught wind of those facts.

Maybe – but here he is, in my face, threatening me.

"Maybe I need to tell you something," he said, reaching upward with his hand.

_His hand…_

Melvin's hand encircled Kristen's throat. She reached upward with both of her arm owns, but he was surprisingly strong, tightening down the grip with his hand and cutting off her air supply. Kristen choked on some of the air in her own lungs as her body attempted to find more oxygen.

The look on his face reminded her of something she had not thought of in a long time.

Her father. Lanh's face replaced Melvin's.

_I thought I'd blocked it out…it seemed so logical…_

After all, that's what the police thought had happened, hadn't they? That she and her father had been attacked in their room by an assailant also seen by her mother, and that Kristen's fragile emotional state, coupled with years of abuse that neighbors could attend to, had forced her to block out the image of her attacker?

_It's so logical, isn't it, Kristen?_

She gasped for air again, but then she heard it.

_Ccccccc rrrrrr ooooo aaaaaa kkkkk…_

_Oh my God – she's come back…_

And she hadn't been the only one who heard it. Kristen greedily inhaled the air as she felt Melvin's grip around her throat loosen, and his head slowly turned back.

Kristen looked up, past Melvin's shoulder, already knowing what she would see, but obsessed with the idea of confirming her suspicions.

Two feet behind Melvin, she stood, her arms swaying, her head and neck bobbing, her white dress standing out against the cold, gray paint of the tiny room.

And she was looking directly at Melvin…

_She never left me, did she?_

Melvin screamed as Kayako began walking toward him, her off-kilter body movements doing just as much to mortify him as the ungodly sound emanating from her throat.

_Everyone must suffer,_ Kristen thought.


End file.
